LIBRARY 

Coast  Artillery  School 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

LIBRARY 

COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE 
DAVIS,  CALIFORNIA 


A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE 


AND 


OTHER    ESSAYS    AND    ADDRESSES 


BY 


HENRY   CABOT   LODGE 
u\ 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1907 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

•RY 

Of- AGRICULTURE 

DAVIS 


A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE1 

THE  United  States  frigate  Constitution  has  come 
back  to  Boston  and  to  Massachusetts.  She  floats 
again  upon  the  waters  into  which  she  rushed  as  she 
left  the  builder's  ways  a  hundred  years  ago.  She 
returns  to  us  stripped  of  her  masts  and  spars,  of  her 
sails  and  guns,  of  all  that  once  made  her  a  thing  of 
life.  She  is  little  more  now  than  a  hulk,  roofed  over 
and  weather-beaten,  helpless  and  motionless  on  the 
sea  where  once  she  rode  triumphant.  Curious  in 
quirers  have  been  at  pains  to  tell  us  that  of  the  ship 
launched  in  1797  scarcely  anything  remains;  that  in 
her  long  career  she  has  been  made  over  from  truck  to 
keel.  So  be  it.  Whether  the  statement  is  true  or 
false  matters  not.  It  is  not  a  given  mass  of  wood 
and  iron  which  touches  our  hearts  and  stirs  our  pride. 
It  is  the  old  ship  herself,  because  she  is  the  visible 
symbol  of  a  great  past,  charged  with  noble  memories, 
and  representing  sentiments,  aspirations,  and  beliefs 
far  more  lasting  than 

"  Brass  eternal,  slave  to  mortal  rage." 

i  Address  delivered  in  the  Old  South  Church,  Boston,  October  21, 
1897,  on  the  occasion  of  the  return  of  the  frigate  Constitution  to 
the  Charlestown  Navy  Yard. 

1 


2  A   FIGHTING  FRIGATE 

That  which  concerns  us  here  is  what  this  old  man- 
of-war  means  to  us,  not  what  she  is.  There  is  "  much 
music,  excellent  voice  "  in  this  historic  ship,  and,  more 
fortunate  than  Hamlet's  friends,  we  know  the  touch 
of  it  and  can  make  it  speak. 

Every  one  is  familiar  with  Turner's  famous  picture 
of  "The  Fighting  Temeraire  Towed  to  her  Last 
Berth."  It  is  a  masterpiece  of  England's  greatest 
painter.  The  splendor  of  the  execution  arrests  the 
eye  at  once.  The  crowded  river,  the  disturbed  water, 
the  smoky  mist,  the  marvellous  effects  of  clouds  and 
color,  of  light  and  shade,  all  fill  the  gazer  with  won 
der  and  delight.  But  there  is  much  more  than  this. 
As  we  look  at  the  old  brown  hulk  dragged  slowly  up 
the  murky  stream,  we  see  that  the  canvas  before  us 
is  not  only  a  picture,  but  a  poem  full  of  pathos  and 
of  memories.  The  old  ship's  course  is  run.  She  will 
never  face  the  seas  nor  front  the  foe  again.  The  end 
of  a  great  career,  always  pathetic  to  the  finite  mind, 
is  here  very  present  to  us.  Yet  even  this  is  not  all 
which  genius  has  put  upon  the  canvas.  Turner  was 
painting  more  than  water,  sky,  and  ship.  He  has 
touched  the  scene  with  the  enchanter's  wand,  and  we 
behold  as  in  a  magic  mirror  the  story  of  England's 
navy.  The  long  roll  of  her  sea  fights  stretches  out 
before  us.  All  the  great  figures  are  there,  from 
Grenville  sinking  on  the  Revenge  ringed  round  by 
foes,  and  Blake  burning  the  Spanish  ships  at  Cadiz 


A  FIGHTING   FRIGATE  3 

and  sweeping  through  the  Mediterranean,  to  Nelson 
dying  victorious  at  Trafalgar.  Above  all,  the  "  Fight 
ing  Temeraire  "  speaks  to  us  of  that  supreme  period 
of  England's  naval  history  when  she  had  crushed 
France  and  Spain,  and  ruled  the  ocean  unopposed, 
the  great  sea  power  of  the  world.  Against  that 
mighty  power,  in  the  full  flush  of  victory  and 
dominion,  we  took  up  arms,  and  England  suddenly 
discovered  that,  ship  for  ship  and  man  for  man,  she 
had  more  than  met  her  match. 

It  was  by  no  fault  of  their  own  that  the  United 
States  found  themselves  pitted  in  a  terribly  unequal 
struggle  against  this  great  antagonist.  From  the 
renewal  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  after  the  rupture  of 
the  Peace  of  Amiens,  there  was  no  insult,  no  humili 
ation,  no  outrage  which  the  two  great  combatants, 
England  and  France,  failed  to  inflict  on  the  United 
States.  The  administrations  of  Jefferson  and  Madison 
attempted  to  meet  these  attacks  with  diplomacy, 
which  was  worthless,  because  not  backed  by  either 
courage  or  force,  and  with  commercial  restrictions 
which  injured  us  more  than  those  against  whom  they 
were  aimed.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Federalist  oppo 
sition,  sympathizing  with  England  in  her  struggle 
against  Napoleon,  taunted  the  administration  with 
the  humiliations  to  which  we  were  forced  to  submit, 
and  yet  made  a  factious  resistance  to  every  effort  at 
retaliation.  Gradually  the  situation  grew  too  intol- 


4  A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE 

erable  to  be  borne.  If  our  flag  was  to  be  flouted,  our 
seamen  impressed,  our  ships  seized,  our  diplomatists 
insulted,  then  our  independence  for  which  we  had 
fought  was  a  delusion,  and  we  were  abject  slaves  of 
a  worse  tyranny  than  any  ever  dreamed  of  in  colonial 
days.  This  the  spirit  of  the  American  people  could 
not  endure,  and  a  new  party  rose  up,  led  by  Clay, 
Calhoun,  and  the  younger  men  of  the  South  and  West, 
who  determined  that  we  should  at  least  vindicate  our 
rigM  to  exist  as  a  nation,  and  that  it  was  better  to  go 
down  fighting,  if  sink  we  must,  than  to  submit  to 
degradation  and  ruin  without  a  murmur.  This  new 
party  meant  to  fight.  That  they  rushed  forward 
blindly,  that  they  counted  no  cost,  that  they  were 
guilty  of  loud  boasting  without  making  any  prepara 
tion,  that  they  allowed  words  to  pass  for  deeds,  when 
what  we  needed  were  soldiers,  sailors,  and  ships,  and 
not  language,  is  all  sadly  true.  And  yet  none  the 
less  were  they  fundamentally  right.  At  that  period,  if 
we  were  to  have  peace  or  honor  or  national  existence, 
we  were  compelled  to  fight.  The  new  war  party  did 
not  care  with  whom  we  fought.  They  were  ready 
to  fight  both  France  and  England,  or  either  of  them. 
There  was  not  much  to  choose  so  far  as  their  ill- 
treatment  of  us  was  concerned,  and  it  was  indeed 
merely  owing  to  the  cynical  duplicity  and  mendacity 
of  Napoleon  that  we  finally  went  to  war  with  England 
instead  of  with  France.  Into  that  conflict  the  new 


A  FIGHTING   FRIGATE  5 

party  dragged  the  reluctant  President,  while  the 
Federalists,  with  bitter  if  unconscious  satire,  called 
it  "Mr.  Madison's  war." 

Thus  war  began.  We  were  utterly  unprepared  on 
land.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  a  large  part  of 
the  people  lived  on  the  frontier,  and  were  pioneers, 
backwoodsmen,  and  Indian  fighters.  Even  in  the 
older  settlements,  except  in  a  few  seaport  towns,  the 
men  from  their  boyhood  were  accustomed  to  shoot 
and  ride.  Their  habits  of  life  were  such  that  they 
were  easily  made  into  soldiers,  for  they  were  rifle 
men  and  horsemen  naturally,  and  lacked  nothing 
but  drill  and  discipline.  In  1812  the  growth  of  the 
country  had  changed  the  situation.  We  had  no  or 
ganized  militia,  as  we  have  to-day,  and  soldiers  had 
to  be  taken  largely  from  among  men  who  had  never 
fired  a  gun  or  mounted  a  horse.  We  could  not 
make  an  army  out  of  this  material  as  quickly  as 
we  did  in  the  Revolution.  Yet  the  bravery  and 
fighting  capacity  of  the  race  are  shown  by  the  fact 
that  in  two  years  we  had  soldiers  able  to  fight  with 
the  best  at  Lundy's  Lane  and  Chippewa,  while  the 
Spaniards,  after  five  years  of  service  under  Welling 
ton,  raced  away  at  Toulouse  as  if  they  had  never 
seen  an  enemy.  None  the  less,  the  two  years  spent 
in  making  soldiers  after  hostilities  had  begun  were 
marked  by  disasters  which  suitable  preparation  for 
war  would  have  avoided. 


6  A  FIGETTING   FRIGATE 

At  sea  the  case  was  very  different.  The  last 
Federalist  Administration  had  begun  our  naval  policy, 
and  built  ships  of  the  finest  types.  The  policy  was 
abandoned  by  Jefferson,  but  the  ships  remained,  and, 
although  they  were  few,  they  were  of  the  best.  We 
were  a  seafaring  people,  and  the  American  sailor  be 
came  a  man-of-war's-man  at  once.  At  sea,  therefore, 
although  in  a  very  limited  way,  we  were  prepared, 
and  the  result  was  at  once  apparent.  The  career 
of  the  Constitution  illustrates  that  of  the  American 
navy  throughout  the  war,  although  she  was  not  only 
uniformly  victorious,  but  more  fortunate  than  many 
of  her  sister  ships  in  escaping  capture  by  a  superior 
force.  To  tell  the  splendid  story  of  the  Constitu 
tion  in  the  detail  it  deserves  would  take  hours,  and 
to-day  we  have  only  minutes  to  give. 

I  can  only  touch  here  very  briefly  on  the  events  which 
have  made  the  old  ship  so  famous.  Commanded  by 
Capt.  Isaac  Hull,  she  left  the  Chesapeake  on  the  12th 
of  July,  1812.  On  the  17th  she  almost  ran  into  a 
British  squadron,  consisting  of  a  ship  of  the  line  of 
sixty-four  guns  and  four  frigates.  They  gave  chase. 
For  three  days,  through  perilous  calms,  when  he 
towed  and  warped  his  ship  along,  through  light  and 
baffling  breezes,  through  squalls  and  darkness,  Hull 
worked  his  way  until  the  last  enemy  dropped  be 
low  the  horizon.  It  was  a  fine  exhibition  of  cool 
courage  and  skilful  seamanship.  He  outmanoeuvred 


A  FIGHTING   FRIGATE  7 

and  outsailed  his  foe,  and  escaped  from  an  over 
whelming  force  flying  the  flag  of  the  mistress  of  the 
seas.  July  26  the  Constitution  reached  Boston,  and 
on  August  2  set  sail  again,  and  stood  to  the  eastward. 
Thence  she  went  to  the  Bay  of  Fundy  and  ran  along 
the  coast  of  Nova  Scotia  and  Newfoundland  to  Cape 
Race.  On  the  19th  she  sighted  the  Guerriere,  one 
of  the  ships  which  had  pursued  her,  and  bore  down 
at  once.  There  was  an  hour  of  long-range  firing, 
by  which  little  damage  was  done,  and  then  the 
Constitution  closed,  and  they  exchanged  broadsides 
within  pistol  shot.  The  sea  was  very  rough,  but  the 
American  aim  was  deadly.  The  Constitution  was 
but  little  damaged,  while  the  Guerriere' s  mizzenmast 
went  by  the  board.  Then  Hull  luffed  under  his  enemy's 
bows  and  raked  her,  then  wore  and  raked  again.  So 
near  were  the  two  ships  now  that  they  became  en 
tangled.  Boarders  were  called  away  on  the  Guerriere, 
but  the  British  recoiled  from  the  mass  of  seamen  on 
the  American  ship.  The  sea  indeed  was  so  high  that 
boarding  was  impossible,  although  the  Americans  tried 
it,  and  the  musketry  fire  at  these  close  quarters  was 
very  severe.  Then  it  was  that  the  Americans  suffered 
the  loss  of  the  day,  but  that  of  the  British  was  much 
heavier.  Finally  the  sea  forced  the  ships  apart,  after 
this  brief  hand-to-hand  conflict,  and  as  they  separated 
the  foremast  and  mainmast  of  the  Guerriere  went  by 
the  board,  so  that  she  rolled  a  helpless  hulk  upon  the 


8  A  FIGHTING   FRIGATE 

waves.  Hull  drew  off,  repaired  damages  and  bore 
down  again,  when  the  Guerriere  struck  her  flag. 
The  next  day  Hull  took  off  all  her  crew,  and  the 
Guerriere,  shot  to  pieces  and  a  mere  wreck,  was  set 
on  fire  and  blown  up.  We  had  a  better  ship,  more 
men,  and  threw  a  greater  weight  of  metal.  But  we 
also  fought  our  ship  better  and  were  better  gunners, 
for  while  the  Constitution  lost  fourteen  killed  and 
wounded,  the  Guerriere  lost  seventy-nine,  and  was 
herself  utterly  destroyed. 

Hull  returned  in  triumph  to  Boston,  and  the  news 
of  his  victory  filled  the  country  with  pride,  and  Eng 
land  with  alarm.  The  London  "  Times  "  thought  it 
a  serious  blow  to  England's  naval  supremacy.  "  It 
is  not  merely  that  an  English  frigate  has  been 
taken/7  said  the  "  Times,"  "  but  that  it  has  been  taken 
by  a  new  enemy."  At  that  period  England  naturally 
enough  considered  herself  invincible.  Her  officers  and 
seamen  never  stopped  to  consider  odds,  but  closed 
with  an  antagonist  and  then  romped  on  board  her, 
confident  that  one  Englishman  was  equal  to  at  least 
five  Frenchmen  or  Spaniards.  The  results  hitherto 
had  justified  their  confidence,  but  now  sprang  up  a 
people  who  had  faster  ships,  sailed  better,  and  shot 
straighter  than  they,  and  who  were  also  quite  as  ready 
as  they  to  come  to  close  quarters  by  boarding.  One 
frigate  was  nothing,  but  the  facts  flashed  out  in  this 
first  fight  of  the  Constitution  were  impressive. 


A   FIGHTING    FRIGATE  9 

Hull  resigned  the  command  of  the  Constitution, 
and  was  succeeded  by  Captain  Bainbridge,  who  sailed 
on  October  26.  In  December  the  Constitution  was 
off  the  coast  of  Brazil,  and  just  as  the  year  was 
closing  she  fell  in  with  the  Java,  carrying  out  Lieu- 
tenant-General  Hislop,  the  new  Governor  of  Bombay. 
The  Java  was  one  of  the  crack  frigates  of  the  British 
navy.  She  was  faster  than  the  Constitution,  and 
carried  only  50  less  men,  and  78  pounds  less  weight 
of  metal.  The  ships  were  thus  pretty  evenly 
matched,  and  the  Constitution  suffered  most  from 
the  first  broadside  exchanged  at  long  range.  After 
that,  however,  the  British  fire  was  steadily  inferior, 
while  that  of  the  Americans  became  more  and  more 
deadly.  Captain  Lambert,  who  was  killed  in  the 
action,  handled  his  ship  with  skill  and  fought  her 
with  the  utmost  gallantry.  But,  despite  the  Java's 
advantage  in  speed,  Bainbridge's  admirable  seaman 
ship  overcame  it,  and  he  kept  clear  of  being  raked  by 
wearing  in  the  smoke,  although  his  wheel  had  been 
shot  away  and  his  steering  was  hampered.  The 
Java  getting  more  and  more  crippled  and  suffering 
severely  from  the  fire  from  the  American  tops,  Cap 
tain  Lambert  ordered  her  to  be  laid  aboard  the 
enemy.  She  came  down  with  her  men  ready  for 
the  spring,  but  before  she  reached  her  antagonist 
her  maintopmast  and  her  foremast  had  been  shot 
away.  Her  bowsprit  caught  in  the  Constitution's 


10  A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE 

mizzen  rigging,  and  the  Americans  raked  her  once 
more.  Again  the  ships  swung  side  by  side,  but  the 
American  fire  tore  the  Java  to  pieces,  and  finally 
silenced  her  guns.  The  Constitution  bore  up,  spent 
an  hour  in  repairing  damages,  and  then  stood  again 
toward  the  Java,  only  to  have  her  strike  her  colors. 
Two  days  later  Bainbridge  took  the  crew  out  and 
destroyed  his  prize,  for  she  was  too  much  injured  to 
be  carried  to  the  United  States.  It  had  been  a  hard- 
fought  action  between  two  nearly  equal  antagonists, 
and  the  British  lost  their  ship  and  150  men  in 
killed  and  wounded,  while  the  Americans'  loss  was 
48.  Each  captain  fought  his  ship  well,  but  it  was 
the  precision  and  rapidity  of  the  American  fire 
which  won  the  day  and  inflicted  such  disproportion 
ate  loss  on  the  enemy. 

The  Constitution  continued  in  active  service,  doing 
good  work  and  escaping  capture  by  superior  force, 
but  it  was  not  until  1815,  after  peace  had  actually 
been  signed,  that  she  won  her  last  victory.  Com 
manded  by  Capt.  Charles  Stewart,  she  slipped  out 
of  Boston  Harbor  on  December  17,  1814,  and  on 
February  20,  off:  Madeira,  fell  in  with  the  frigate- 
built  corvette  Cyane  and  the  sloop  Levant.  They 
were  ready  enough  to  fight,  and,  the  Constitution 
coming  up  with  them  soon  after  six  o'clock,  the 
action  began  at  close  quarters  with  both  the  enemy's 
vessels  on  the  port  side  of  the  frigate.  The  broad- 


A  FIGHTING   FRIGATE  11 

sides  were  heavy  and  continuous  and  the  firing  from 
the  tops  steady.  This  lasted  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 
It  was  then  moonlight,  and  a  heavy  cloud  of  smoke 
hid  the  British  vessels.  Stewart  therefore  stopped 
firing,  and  when  the  smoke  lifted  he  saw  the  Levant 
dead  to  leeward  and  the  Cyane  luffing  up  for  his  port 
quarter.  He  braced  his  topsails  back,  backed  rapidly 
astern,  forcing  the  Cyane  to  fill  to  avoid  being  raked, 
and  then  poured  in  his  broadsides.  The  Cyane' s  fire 
slackened  and  died  away.  The  Levant  coming  to 
the  rescue,  Stewart  drove  her  off  with  two  broadsides 
and  fell  again  upon  the  Cyane,  which  struck  just 
before  seven  o'clock,  after  an  action  lasting  forty 
minutes.  Putting  a  prize  crew  on  the  Cyane,  Stewart 
bore  down  after  the  Levant,  which  first  fought,  then 
tried  unsuccessfully  to  escape,  and  finally  struck. 
Stewart  sailed  with  his  prizes  to  the  Cape  de  Yerde 
Islands,  and  while  there  at  anchor  sighted  three 
heavy  British  frigates  making  for  the  harbor.  He  at 
once,  with  a  rapidity  which  showed  the  remarkable 
skill  and  discipline  of  his  crew,  got  all  three  vessels 
under  way  and  put  to  sea.  The  Cyane  escaped  and 
was  brought  safely  to  the  United  States.  The  Con 
stitution  also  outsailed  her  pursuers,  but  the  Levant 
took  refuge  in  Porto  Praya,  and  as  England  did  not 
pay  the  slightest  attention  to  the  neutral  rights  of  a 
weak  power,  was  there  recaptured.  This  action  was 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  bits  of  seamanship  and 


12  A   FIGHTING   FRIGATE 

manoeuvring  in  the  whole  war,  for  Stewart  not 
only  defeated  two  antagonists,  but  captured  them 
both.  The  British  had  130  less  men  and  59  pounds 
greater  weight  of  metal  than  the  Constitution,  yet 
they  lost  fifty-seven  men  and  both  ships.  It  was  a 
fit  close  to  the  career  of  the  Constitution,  which  had 
never  lost  a  fight  or  been  caught  by  a  superior  force. 
I  have  touched  only  on  the  exploits  of  the  Con 
stitution  in  the  War  of  1812,  and  have  not  recounted 
at  all  the  work  she  did  in  checking  the  attacks  of 
the  French  at  the  close  of  the  previous  century  or 
the  large  part  she  took  in  the  war  with  the  Barbary 
States,  when  under  Preble  she  bombarded  Tripoli  and 
imposed  submission  on  that  nest  of  pirates.  But 
creditable  as  were  those  earlier  performances,  it  was 
only  in  the  War  of  1812  that  the  career  of  the 
Constitution  takes  on  a  wide  importance  and  a  deep 
significance.  She  may  stand  for  us  as  the  exemplar 
of  the  American  navy  at  that  period,  and  it  was  the 
work  of  the  navy  which  then  vindicated  our  national 
existence  and  relieved  us  forever  from  the  state  of 
oppression  and  outrage  to  which  we  had  been  subjected. 
In  saying  this  I  do  not  overlook  the  good  fighting 
that  our  soldiers  finally  did  on  the  Canadian  border. 
Still  less  do  I  forget  New  Orleans.  Jackson,  draw 
ing  on  a  population  of  frontiersmen  and  Indian 
fighters  of  the  same  class  as  those  who  in  the 
Revolution  had  crushed  Burgoyne  and  won  King's 


A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE  13 

Mountain,  found  material  ready  to  his  hand  out 
of  which  an  army  could  be  quickly  developed. 
With  six  thousand  American  riflemen  he  defeated 
with  heavy  loss  more  than  ten  thousand  of  Welling 
ton's  Peninsula  veterans,  who  had  swept  before 
them  the  soldiers  of  Napoleon,  commanded  by  one 
of  the  ablest  of  his  marshals.  But  New  Orleans 
was  fought  after  the  peace  had  been  signed.  It  did 
not  affect  the  outcome  of  the  war,  and  English  his 
tories  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  news  of 
Jackson's  victory  was  never  received,  nor  the  facts 
in  regard  to  it  ever  known,  in  England.  The 
fighting  which  brought  us  out  of  the  war  with  an 
unsatisfactory  treaty,  but  with  every  substantial 
object  fully  attained,  was  that  of  the  lakes  and  the 
ocean.  Perry's  victory  on  Lake  Erie,  and  Mac- 
Donough's  less  famous  but  equally  important  and 
more  brilliant  victory  at  Plattsburg,  won  against  odds 
with  which  Perry  did  not  have  to  contend,  rendered 
all  the  military  successes  of  the  British  of  no  avail. 
This  was  acknowledged  by  Wellington,  who,  when  he 
was  asked  to  take  command  in  America,  said  that  if 
he  went  out  it  would  only  be  to  make  peace,  for  he 
did  not  see  that  England  had  achieved  any  success 
which  could  compel  from  the  Americans  the  slightest 
concession  of  territory  or  principle. 

On  the  ocean  our  victories  in  material  results  were 
trifling,  but  their  effect  was  enormous.     It  was  not 


14  A  FIGHTING    FRIGATE 

that  we  had  taken  a  few  frigates,  preyed  successfully 
on  British  commerce,  and  raised  insurance  rates  in 
London,  but  that  we  had  demonstrated  to  the  world 
that  we  were  formidable  fighters,  capable  of  contest 
ing  the  dominion  of  the  seas  with  any  power,  and  if 
pushed  to  the  wall,  able  to  wreck  the  trade  and  com 
merce  of  our  antagonist.  We  went  into  the  contest 
with  some  dozen  men-of-war,  while  England  had  a 
thousand.  The  few  sloops  and  frigates  which  Eng 
land  lost  to  us  were  in  themselves  hardly  to  be 
noticed  in  the  immense  mass  of  her  na.val  force. 
But  the  moral  and  political  effect  was  incalculable. 
A  single  brief  statement  shows  what  the  American 
victories  meant.  In  twenty  years  England  had 
fought  over  two  hundred  single  ship  actions,  with 
pretty  much  every  people  of  Europe,  and  had  lost 
only  five  of  them.  In  six  months  she  fought  five 
single  ship  actions  with  us  and  losfc  every  one.  Dur 
ing  the  war,  despite  the  fact  that  our  ships,  as  was 
inevitable,  were  sooner  or  later  taken  or  blockaded 
by  vastly  superior  force,  there  were  thirteen  single 
ship  actions,  including  that  of  the  Constitution  with 
the  Cyane  and  Levant,  and  England  won  two  and 
lost  eleven.  To  the  great  sea  power  of  the  world 
these  facts  were  grave  and  alarming.  At  the  same 
time,  also,  our  cruisers  and  privateers  ranged  the 
English  Channel  and  swarmed  along  the  highways  of 
ocean  traffic,  harrying  and  capturing  British  mer- 


A   FIGHTING    FRIGATE  15 

chantmen  and  forcing  up  insurance  to  a  height  un 
heard  of  before.  A  few  pointless  raids  and  barren 
victories  in  America  were  all  Great  Britain  could  set 
against  these  painful  losses  of  ships  and  money.  In 
a  word,  her  naval  prestige  was  damaged,  and  her 
commerce  injured  by  a  new  sea  power,  rapidly  de 
veloping  under  the  stress  of  war.  There  was  no  way 
to  get  compensation  for  such  vital  wounds  as  these 
from  a  nation  three  thousand  miles  away.  Hence 
the  treaty  of  Ghent.  Hence  the  vindication  of  the 
rights  of  the  United  States  as  a  nation. 

That  this  is  a  correct  statement  of  the  effect  of  the 
fighting  done  by  the  Constitution  and  her  sister  ships 
is  proved  not  only  by  our  own  opinion,  but  by  that  of 
England  and  Europe  as  well.  Sir  Howard  Douglas, 
in  his  book  on  gunnery,  which  for  fifty  years  was  the 
text-book  of  the  English  Navy,  takes  nearly  every 
example  of  single  ship  actions  from  our  War  of  1812. 
There  we  may  learn  that  it  was  the  Americans  who 
first  taught  the  naval  world  to  fire  on  the  falling 
wave,  which  at  that  day  was  little  less  than  a  revolu 
tion  in  practical  gunnery.  If  we  turn  to  the  greatest 
of  the  French  naval  authorities,  Admiral  Jurien  de  la 
Graviere,  an  entirely  disinterested  witness,  we  shall 
find  that  almost  the  only  single  ship  actions  which 
he  mentions  are  ours.  He  gave  as  much  attention 
to  them  as  to  the  great  fleet  actions  of  the  preceding 
twenty  years,  and  he  was  writing  a  purely  scientific 


16  A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE 

book  on  naval  warfare  for  the  French.  These  high 
authorities,  one  French  and  one  English,  prove  that 
in  single  ship  actions,  which  alone  we  were  able  to 
undertake,  we  at  once  went  to  the  front  rank,  sur 
passed  even  England,  and  gave  lessons  in  seamanship 
and  gunnery  to  the  great  sea  power  of  the  world. 

The  moral  effect  of  our  victories  and  of  our  sea 
fighting  is  shown  even  more  strikingly  by  contempo 
rary  opinion.  In  1827  James,  the  English  naval 
historian,  wrote  as  follows  to  George  Canning :  "  The 
menacing  tone  of  the  American  President's  message 
is  now  the  prevailing  topic  of  conversation,  more 
especially  among  the  mercantile  men,  in  whose  com 
pany  I  daily  travel  to  and  from  town.  One  says, 
'  We  had  better  cede  a  point  or  two  than  go  to  war 
with  the  United  States.'  '  Yes,'  says  another,  '  for 
we  shall  get  nothing  but  hard  knocks  there.'  '  True/ 
adds  a  third ;  '  and  what  is  worse  than  all,  our  sea 
men  are  more  than  half  afraid  to  meet  the  Americans 
at  sea.'  Unfortunately  this  depression  of  feeling, 
this  cowed  spirit,  prevails  very  generally  over  the 
community ;  even  among  persons  well  informed  on 
other  subjects,  and  who,  were  a  British  seaman  to 
be  named  with  a  Frenchman  or  a  Spaniard,  would 
scoff  at  the  comparison."  About  the  same  time 
Stratford  Canning  came  out  as  Minister  to  the 
United  States.  He  was  a  man  of  ability  and  of 
high  and  imperious  temper,  very  well  known  after- 


A   FIGHTING    FRIGATE  17 

ward  as  Lord  Stratford  de  Redclyffe,  the  "  Great 
Eltchi "  of  the  Eastern  question,  and  the  chief  author 
of  the  Crimean  War.  He  was  sent  here  through  the 
influence  of  his  cousin,  George  Canning,  then  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Ministry,  —  the  same  George  Canning  who, 
in  the  first  decade  of  the  century,  had  sneered  at  and 
trampled  on  the  United  States,  and  called  our  navy 
"a  few  fir  frigates,  with  bits  of  bunting  at  the  top.'* 
Since  that  jeer  had  been  flung  at  us  these  "fir 
frigates"  had  whipped  British  frigates  in  every 
action  fought  by  them  but  one,  and  when  the  im 
perious  and  somewhat  domineering  Stratford  Can 
ning  came  to  Washington  he  wrote  as  follows  of 
his  purpose :  "The  maintenance  of  peace  was  to 
be  my  principal  care,  and  with  this  >view  it  was  de 
sirable  that  I  should  be  rather  observant  than  active, 
slow  to  take  offence,  and  in  the  management  of  cur 
rent  affairs  more  tolerant  of  adverse  pretensions  than 
ready  to  push  my  own  claims  to  an  extreme."  Mr. 
Poole,  Stratford  Canning's  biographer,  adds  :  "  Con 
ciliation  was  then  the  purpose  of  the  British  Govern 
ment, —  England  had  learned  by  more  than  one 
experience  that  the  temper  of  the  states  was  not  to  be 
rashly  trifled  with."  What  a  change  of  tone  is  here 
from  that  of  the  early  years  of  the  century,  when  the 
words  and  actions  alike  of  foreign  Powers  toward 
the  United  States  are  such  that  we  cannot  recall 
them  even  now  without  a  hot  blush  of  shame  and 


18  A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE 

mortification  !  What  a  good  lesson  had  been  taught, 
and  how  much  had  really  been  done  for  peace  by  the 
guns  of  that  old  ship  now  fallen  silent  forever ! 

Another  little  incident  in  this  same  direction  is  also 
very  suggestive.  At  almost  his  first  interview  with 
Stratford  Canning,  John  Quincy  Adams,  then  Secre 
tary  of  State,  said,  "  It  took  us  last  time  several  years 
to  go  to  war  with  England ;  it  would  only  take  sev 
eral  weeks  now ; "  and  Mr.  Canning  accepted  the 
intimation  in  good  part.  Mr.  Adams  has  been  dead 
for  more  than  fifty  years,  and  he  may  safely,  therefore, 
be  called  a  statesman,  and  a  great  one,  too,  whose  opin 
ions  it  is  well  to  heed.  A  little  reflection,  moreover, 
will  show  that  he  was  entirely  right  in  his  attitude 
toward  England,  and  in  reality  the  best  friend  and 
maintainer  of  peace.  Jefferson  and  Madison  were 
hesitating  and  timid.  They  swallowed  insult  in  the 
interests  of  peace  and  landed  us  in  war.  Mr.  Adams 
took  a  high,  firm  tone  with  England  and  maintained 
peace  inviolate.  Jefferson  and  Madison  abandoned 
ship  building,  prepared  no  defences,  and  drifted, 
feebly  gesticulating,  into  a  conflict  with  the  greatest 
sea  power  of  the  world.  John  Quincy  Adams  and 
Andrew  Jackson  after  him  took  a  strong  and  self- 
respecting  tone  with  all  the  world  and  kept  an  un 
broken  peace.  England  and  Europe  received  valuable 
instruction  from  the  war  of  which  this  battered  old 
ship  is  the  sign  and  symbol,  but  we  Americans  were 


A   FIGHTING   FRIGATE  19 

taught  a  great  deal  more.  We  had  learned  that 
weak  defencelessness  meant  war,  and  strong,  armed 
readiness  meant  peace,  honor,  and  quiet.  When 
John  Quincy  Adams  spoke  to  Mr.  Canning  he  knew 
that  he  was  backed  by  a  strong  navy,  for  in  1826, 
with  a  population  of  ten  millions,  we  had  a  larger 
navy  than  we  have  to-day,1  with  a  population  of 
seventy  millions.  It  is  well  to  note  that  the  lesson 
of  wise  preparation,  taught  by  the  War  of  1812,  and 
always  worth  remembering,  is  even  more  important 
now  than  then,  for  to-day  great  wars  are  fought  in  a 
few  months,  while  it  takes  years  to  build  modern 
ships  and  cast  rifled  guns. 

Out  of  the  War  of  1812  came  these  teachings,  and 
out  of  these  teachings,  taken  to  heart,  as  they  were, 
by  the  men  of  that  day,  came  peace,  the  only  peace 
worth  having.  One  hears  it  often  said  by  persons 
who  are  prone  to  mistake  for  thought  the  repetition 
of  aged  aphorisms,  that  some  people  intend  to  have 
peace  even  if  they  fight  for  it.  They  imagine  that 
they  are  giving  utterance  to  a  biting  and  conclusive 
sarcasm,  when  in  reality  they  are  stating  a  profound 
and  simple  truth.  All  the  peace  the  world  has  ever 
had  has  been  obtained  by  fighting,  and  all  the  peace 
that  any  nation,  which  is  neither  subject  nor  trivial, 

1  The  American  navy  has  not  only  done  some  fighting  quite  in 
the  fashion  of  1812,  but  has  been  much  increased  since  these  words 
were  spoken  in  1897. 


20  A  FIGHTING  FRIGATE 

can  ever  have,  is  by  readiness  to  fight  if  attacked. 
In  our  cities  and  towns  we  maintain  a  large  army 
of  soldiers.  We  call  them  policemen,  but  they  are 
drilled  and  organized,  and  are  in  all  essentials  a 
military  body.  For  what  purpose  are  they  main 
tained  ?  To  make  war  on  any  one  ?  On  the  contrary, 
we  have  police  in  order  to  keep  the  public  peace.  In 
the  same  way  must  the  peace  of  nations  be  kept. 
Weakness,  fear,  and  defencelessness  mean  war  and 
dishonor.  Readiness,  preparation,  and  courage  mean 
honor  and  peace.  Where  we  were  unprepared 
in  1812  we  suffered ;  where  we  were  prepared  we 
prospered  and  vindicated  our  national  existence. 
That  is  the  true  line  of  national  policy  for  which 
the  Constitution  stands  to-day  just  as  much  as 
when  she  overcame  the  English  frigates.  Her  builder, 
building  better  than  he  knew,  both  in  timber  and  in 
words,  called  her  with  a  fine  eloquence  "  a  powerful 
agent  of  national  justice."  So  she  was,  and  she  was 
also  a  minister  and  guardian  of  peace,  —  not  the 
peace  at  which  a  spirited  people  revolts,  but  the 
peace  of  which  Lowell  sings : 

"  Come  peace !  Not  like  a  mourner  bowed, 
For  honor  lost  an'  dear  ones  wasted, 
But  proud,  to  meet  a  people  proud, 
With  eyes  that  tell  o'  triumph  tasted." 

But  there   is   still   something   more  in    this  ship 
Constitution  than  vivid  instruction  as  to  the  truest 


A   FIGHTING   FRIGATE  21 

national  policy.  She  is  the  yet  living  monument, 
not  alone  of  her  own  victories,  but  of  the  men 
behind  the  guns  who  won  them.  She  speaks  to  us 
of  patriotism  and  courage,  of  the  devotion  to  an  idea 
and  to  a  sentiment  for  which  men  laid  down  their 
lives.  The  distinguished  President  of  a  great  univer 
sity  has  recently  warned  his  students  against  the 
tendency  "  to  magnify  the  savage  virtues."  It  is  well 
recognized  that  certain  virtues  can  be  carried  to  a 
point  where  they  cease  to  be  such,  but  it  is  not  quite 
clear  how  a  genuine  virtue  of  any  kind  can  be  too 
much  magnified.  The  virtues  termed  "  savage  "  I  take 
to  be  the  early  and  primary  ones  of  courage,  indiffer 
ence  to  danger,  and  loyalty  to  the  tribes  or  clans 
which,  in  the  processes  of  time,  became  nations  and 
countries.  These  primary  or  "  savage  "  virtues  made 
states  and  nations  possible,  and  in  their  very  nature 
are  the  foundations  out  of  which  other  virtues  have 
arisen.  If  they  decay,  the  whole  fabric  they  sup 
port  will  totter  and  fall. 

The  gentler  virtues,  as  well  as  the  refinements  and 
graces  of  civilization,  rest  upon  these  simpler  quali 
ties,  and  the  highest  achievements  of  the  race  in  the 
arts  of  peace  have  come  from  the  strong,  bold  nations 
of  the  earth.  Art,  literature,  philosophy,  invention, 
in  Greece  and  Rome,  in  Venice  and  Holland,  all 
reached  their  zenith  when  those  countries  were  at  the 
height  of  their  military  and  political  power,  and  sank 


22  A  FIGHTING   FRIGATE 

as  that  power  decayed.  The  discoveries,  the  educa 
tion,  the  freedom,  the  material  development,  the  vast 
growth  of  all  which  is  required  to  raise  and  to  better 
the  conditions  of  mankind,  have  been  most  conspicu 
ous  and  have  made  the  largest  progress  among  those 
nations  which  were  strongest,  most  daring,  and  readi 
est  to  defend  their  rights.  Material  success  with  all 
that  it  implies  is  a  great  achievement,  but  it  is  as 
nothing  to  the  courage  and  faith  which  make  men 
ready  to  sacrifice  all,  even  their  lives,  for  an  ideal  or 
for  a  sentiment.  The  men  who  fell  upon  the  decks 
of  the  Constitution,  or  who  died  at  Gettysburg  and 
Shiloh,  represent  the  highest  and  noblest  spirit  of 
which  a  race  is  capable.  Without  that  spirit  of 
patriotism,  courage,  and  self-sacrifice  no  nation  can 
long  exist,  and  the  greatest  material  success  in  the 
hands  of  the  cringing  and  timid  will  quickly  turn  to 
dust  and  ashes. 

The  Constitution  as  she  lies  in  our  harbor  to-day  is 
an  embodiment  and  memorial  of  that  lofty  patriotism. 
Therefore  she  should  be  preserved.  Boston  has  for 
her  a  peculiar  attachment.  Here  she  was  built. 
Here  she  was  launched.  From  yonder  harbor  she 
went  forth  to  her  first  and  to  her  last  combat,  and 
here  she  returned  scarred  with  shot,  but  crowned 
with  her  first  great  victory.  We  have  yet  another 
claim  upon  her,  deeper  and  stronger  still.  When  she 
was  threatened  with  destruction  fifteen  years  after 


A   FIGHTING   FRIGATE  23 

the  war,  she  was  saved  by  the  lyric  verse  of  a  Boston 
poetj  by  the  "powerful  rhyme"  which  outlasts  the 
gilded  monuments  of  princes.  Built,  launched,  and 
saved  here  in  Boston,  is  it  any  wonder  that  we  have 
a  peculiar  attachment  to  the  old  frigate  and  should 
feel  that  this  ought  to  be  her  home  and  resting- 
place  ? 

And  yet  we  know  well  that  she  is  not  our  ship. 
She  did  not  win  her  victories  for  Massachusetts,  but 
for  the  United  States.  She  was  the  nation's  ship  and 
fought  the  nation's  battles  beneath  the  nation's  flag. 
It  is  the  duty,  then,  of  this  nation  to  care  for  and  pre 
serve  her.  I  say  duty,  because  the  nation  which  does 
not  cherish  and  guard  all  that  stands  for  the  great  deeds 
of  the  past  will  have  a  present  and  a  future  barren  of 
aught  that  posterity  will  care  to  recall.  With  a  wise 
liberality  the  United  States  has  given  three  quarters 
of  a  million  to  restore  and  refit  the  Hartford,  the 
ship  in  which  Farragut  went  on  to  victory,  emblem 
of  the  sea  power  which  rent  the  Confederacy  in 
twain,  and  caught  the  seaports  of  the  Kebellion  in  an 
iron  grip.  Let  the  United  States  give  but  a  third  of 
that  sum  to  restore  the  Constitution,  the  last  and 
most  famous  of  the  fighting  ships  which  won  us 
place  and  respect  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

Turn  her  into  a  training  vessel,  if  you  will,  and  let 
American  boys  learn  from  her  lessons  of  patriotism 
as  well  as  seamanship,  but  at  all  events  let  her  be 


24  A   FIGHTING   FRIGATE 

preserved.  She  represents  gallant  deeds  and  goodly 
victories.  She  stands  for  the  spirit  of  patriotism, 
which  uplifts  nations  and  without  which  no  people 
can  be  great.  So  I  say  all  honor  to  the  brave  old 
ship.  You  may  strip  her  of  sails  and  rigging,  cut 
away  her  masts  and  take  out  her  guns,  but  you  never 
can  tear  from  her  the  memories  which  she  bears. 
Let  her  have,  then,  now  and  always  the  love  and 
honor  and  care  which  are  hers  by  right.  But  what 
ever  befalls,  let  us  at  least  not  suffer  her  to  perish  by 
neglect  and  fade  away  from  sight  like  "  the  dull 
weed  that  rots  itself  in  ease  at  Lethe's  Wharf."  If 
we  cannot  keep  her  in  honor,  then  let  it  be  said  now, 
even  as  was  said  nearly  seventy  years  ago : 

"  Nail  to  her  mast  her  holy  flag, 

Set  every  threadbare  sail* 
And  give  her  to  the  God  of  storms, 
The  lightning  and  the  gale." 


JOHN  MARSHALL1 

ONE  hundred  years  ago  to-day  John  Marshall  was 
duly  sworn  in  and  took  his  place  upon  the  bench  of 
the  Supreme  Court  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States.  There  seems  to  have  been  no  ceremony,  no 
parade,  no  pomp  of  any  kind  about  the  doing  of  it. 
The  record  of  the  Supreme  Court  tells  us  in  dry, 
official  words  that  on  February  4,  1801,  the  great 
Virginian  lawyer  assumed  the  highest  judicial  office 
in  the  country.  That  is  all.  The  fact  itself  dropped 
so  quickly  into  the  babbling  current  of  daily  events 
that  the  parting  of  the  waters  was  quite  unheard. 
Yet  the  circles  which  this  noiseless  deed  then  made 
in  the  stream  of  time  have  gone  on  widening  with 
growing  force  until  to-day  all  over  this  broad  land, 
everywhere  among  this  mighty  nation  of  nearly 
eighty  millions,  the  members  of  a  great  profession, 
the  teachers  and  students  of  universities,  the  Presi 
dent,  the  Congress,  and  the  courts,  have  gathered  to 
commemorate  fittingly  the  official  action  so  quietly 
performed  a  century  ago.  Here,  then,  it  is  very 
plain  was  a  great  man,  one  worthy  of  much  thought 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  Bar  Associations  of  Illinois  and 
Chicago  at  the  auditorium  in  Chicago,  February  4,  1901. 


26  JOHN   MARSHALL 

and  consideration.  Is  there,  indeed,  any  subject 
better  worth  thought  and  consideration  than  a  real 
man,  so  great  that  he  not  only  affected  his  own  time 
profoundly,  but  has  projected  his  influence  through 
the  century,  and  holds  still  in  a  firm  grasp  the  mind 
and  the  imagination  of  posterity?  I  am  sure  that 
by  thoughtful  men  this  question  can  be  answered 
only  in  the  affirmative. 

As  I  have  reflected  upon  that  event,  so  briefly 
mentioned  in  the  routine  of  the  Supreme  Court 
record  for  the  year  1801,  there  is  one  thought  which 
has  prevailed  in  my  mind  above  all  others.  When 
Marshall  took  the  oath  as  Chief  Justice  he  was 
Secretary  of  State,  and  for  a  month  he  continued  to 
hold  both  offices,  and  to  wield  very  vigorously  the 
powers  of  the  State  Department.  Perhaps  this  may 
not  strike  other  minds  as  of  much  importance.  To 
me  it  seems  full  of  significance.  The  fact  that  hold 
ing  two  such  offices  at  the  same  time  is  repugnant  to 
our  present  ideas  of  propriety,  is  in  itself  worth  a 
moment's  consideration,  although  it  does  not  contain 
the  deeper  meaning  which  is  to  be  found  in  this 
incident.  It  is  quite  true  that  to-day  no  President 
would  think  of  permitting  the  Chief  Justice  to  be  a 
member  of  his  cabinet  for  an  hour,  and  no  Chief 
Justice  would  allow  himself  to  occupy  such  a  posi 
tion  for  an  instant.  Should  such  a  thing  occur,  the 
storm  of  adverse  criticism  which  would  beat  upon 


JOHN  MARSHALL  27 

both  the  President  and  Chief  Justice  can  be  readily 
imagined.  The  spectacle  of  a  Chief  Justice  acting  as 
the  chief  of  a  party  cabinet  and  in  the  spirit  of  party 
politics  would  now  shock  every  one.  Then  it  shocked 
nobody.  In  1801  we  were  still  very  near  to  England 
in  manners  and  in  habits  of  thought.  We  had  as  yet 
no  administrative  traditions  of  our  own.  Pluralists 
were  not  uncommon  in  English  ministries ;  great 
judicial  officers  had  often  served  as  ministers  of  the 
crown ;  to  this  day  the  highest  judicial  officer  in 
Great  Britain  is  a  member  of  the  cabinet,  his  place  is 
purely  political  in  tenure,  and  he  rises  and  falls  with 
his  party.  The  English  practice  of  having  the  chief 
law  officer  a  member  of  the  government  we  have 
wisely  retained  in  our  Attorney-General,  but  with 
equal  wisdom  we  have  discarded  entirely  their  custom 
of  having  judicial  officers  in  high  political  place.  A 
United  States  judge  to-day  can  hold  no  other  office, 
and  when  he  ascends  to  the  bench  the  door  of  po 
litical  preferment  closes  behind  him.  All  this  practice 
is  deeply  fixed  and  rooted  now,  but  it  was  not  so  in 
1801. 

This  is  not  said  with  any  view  of  defending  Mar 
shall.  John  Adams  and  the  Chief  Justice,  who 
remained  in  his  cabinet  helping  him  to  fill  with  tried 
Federalists  every  vacant  or  newly  created  office,  were 
not  only  high-minded  and  honorable  men,  but  abso 
lutely  void  of  offence  in  this  particular.  The  system 


28  .  JOHN   MARSHALL 

under  which  they  acted  is  not  so  good  as  the  one  we 
have  since  developed  ;  that  is  all.  To  accuse  them  of 
wrongdoing  would  be  as  absurd  as  the  educated 
ignorance  which,  parrot-like,  repeats  the  conventional 
cant  of  its  own  circle  about  the  decline  in  the  char 
acter  and  standard  of  our  public  life  at  Washington. 
If,  for  example,  we  are  to  believe  the  Maclay  Diary, 
the  first  Senate  of  the  United  States  was  corrupt  and 
decadent  to  the  last  degree ;  the  fruit  of  the  Constitu 
tion  was  rotten  before  it  was  ripe.  But  posterity 
knows  that  the  first  Senate  was  upright  and  honor 
able,  composed  of  able  men  doing  their  best  —  and 
their  best,  although  very  good,  was  doubtless  imper 
fect  —  to  solve  in  hard  conflict  the  difficult  problems  of 
their  day.  If  Maclay  was  right  in  picturing  the  first 
Senate  as  bad,  and  the  professional  fault-finder  of  the 
moment  is  also  right  in  his  proposition,  that  all  public 
men  have  declined  in  character,  then  we  are  met 
with  the  startling  contradiction  that  our  government 
still  exists.  The  trouble  is  that  the  contemporary 
who  can  only  censure  is  as  untrustworthy  as  Bache 
in  his  opinion  of  Washington,  or  as  Greeley  and 
many  others  were  in  their  estimate  of  Lincoln.  The 
superior  person  who  leads  a  life  of  inaction  and  criti 
cism  judges  the  present  by  prejudice,  and  contrasts  it 
with  a  past  that  never  existed.  From  the  past,  of 
which  he  is  ignorant,  he  eliminates  all  that  is  bad, 
and  from  the  present,  which  he  does  not  understand, 


JOHN   MARSHALL  29 

he  excludes  all  that  is  good.  It  is  not  to  be  won 
dered  at  that  a  dark  cloud  of  pessimism  broods  over 
his  mental  landscape,  or  that  he  is  himself  a  singu 
larly  useless  person.  In  the  easy  blame  which  such  a 
critic,  arguing  in  his  usual  fashion,  could  throw  upon 
John  Marshall  for  holding  political  office  after  he 
became  Chief  Justice,  there  has  seemed  to  me  an 
interesting  lesson,  so  interesting  that  it  has  led  me 
into  this  long  digression. 

The  real  meaning  of  this  occupancy  of  two  offices  is 
far  different.  For  a  month  Marshall  was  head  of  the 
cabinet  and  head  of  the  judiciary.  He  was  at  once 
statesman  and  judge,  and  although  he  laid  down  the 
statesman's  place  on  the  4th  of  March,  1801,  he 
retained  the  character  to  the  end  of  his  life,  and 
never  ceased  to  be  a  statesman  while  he  built  up  that 
great  reputation  which  in  its  breadth  and  variety 
surpasses,  as  I  believe,  that  of  any  judge  or  jurist  in 
the  splendid  legal  annals  of  the  English-speaking 
people. 

Many  men,  far  abler  and  more  fit  for  the  task 
than  I,  will  to-day  depict  eloquently  to  the  American 
people  the  work  and  the  genius  of  Marshall  as  lawyer 
and  judge.  Upon  that  inviting  field  I  shall  not 
enter.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  the  simpler  and 
humbler  task  of  trying  to  show  how  great  Marshall 
was,  and  how  potent  his  influence  has  been  as  a 
statesman, — a  side  of  his  character  which,  unless  my 


30  JOHN   MARSHALL 

reading  has  much  misled  me,  has  been  hitherto  neg 
lected,  if  not  overlooked,  by  eyes  dazzled  with  the 
brilliancy  of  his  achievements  and  fame  as  a  lawyer. 
But  to  understand  what  he  was  we  must,  as  usual, 
start  with  an  inquiry.  How  had  he  been  trained, 
and  what  were  the  qualities  which  enabled  him  to  play 
in  our  history  these  two  great  parts  as  jurist  and 
statesman  ?  He  was  born  one  of  that  small  body  of 
people  who  composed  the  landowning,  slaveholding 
aristocracy  of  Virginia  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  which  at  that  time  produced,  perhaps,  a 
larger  amount  of  ability  in  the  fields  of  war,  law,  and 
statecraft  than  any  body  of  equal  numbers  in  modern 
times  and  within  a  similar  period.  He  came  of  good 
stock.  His  mother  was  a  Miss  Keith,  whose  father 
was  cousin-german  to  the  last  Earl  Marischal  of  Scot 
land,  and  to  Frederick's  great  Field  Marshal.  His 
father,  whose  people  appear  to  have  come  originally 
from  Wales,  was  a  remarkable  man.  Planter  and 
pioneer,  surveyor  and  frontiersman,  he  was  a  soldier 
in  the  old  French  War,  and  commanded  a  Virginia 
regiment  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  in  which 
three  of  his  sons  also  took  part.  A  man  of  action 
and  of  the  open  air,  he  nevertheless,  despite  a  narrow 
fortune,  had  in  his  remote  home  in  Fauquier  County 
a  good  library,  and  what  was  still  better,  a  love  for 
books  and  literature.  He  had  fifteen  children  and 
educated  them  himself,  until  he  brought  to  his  house 


JOHN   MARSHALL  31 

a  Scotch  clergyman  named  Thompson,  the  pastor  of 
the  village.  In  this  way  the  oldest  son  John  studied, 
developing  a  great  love  for  books  and  for  poetry, 
while  he  grew  hardy  and  strong  in  the  outdoor  life 
and  with  the  rough  field  sports  of  a  new  country. 
This  lasted  until  he  was  fourteen.  Then  he  went  to 
Westmoreland  County,  studied  with  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Campbell,  came  home  to  study  again  with  Mr. 
Thompson,  went  as  far  as  Horace  and  Livy  in  his 
classics,  then  began  to  mingle  Coke  and  Blackstone 
with  his  literature,  and  finally,  following  his  natural 
bent,  turned  entirely  to  the  law.  So  engaged,  the 
Revolution  found  him.  More  and  more,  as  the  noise 
of  impending  strife  grew  louder,  he  turned  from  his 
books  to  drill  his  company  of  militiamen.  At  last 
the  storm  broke,  and  Lieutenant  Marshall,  with  his 
company  of  riflemen  in  hunting-shirts,  was  at  the 
first  fight,  when  Lord  Dunmore  was  defeated  and 
driven  back  to  Norfolk.  He  later  joined  the  Conti 
nental  Army  with  his  company,  was  at  Brandywine 
and  Germantown,  wintered  at  Valley  Forge,  rose  to 
be  a  Captain,  was  brave,  popular,  and  deemed  to  be 
so  fair-minded  that  he  was  a  usual  arbiter  in  all  dis 
putes.  The  next  summer  he  was  at  Monmouth,  when 
Washington  drove  the  British  finally  back  into  New 
York ;  later  he  shared  in  the  assault  on  Stony  Point 
and  in  the  brilliant  enterprise  of  Paulus  Hook. 

Soon  after  this  the  enlistment  term  of  the  men  in 


32  JOHN   MARSHALL 

Marshall's  part  of  the  Virginian  line  expired,  and  he 
went  home  to  stay  until  the  State  raised  fresh  troops. 
While  he  waited  he  attended  the  lectures  on  law  of 
Chancellor  Wythe,  and  got  a  license  to  practise. 
Then,  weary  of  inaction,  he  set  out  alone  and  on  foot 
to  rejoin  the  army  as  a  volunteer.  Back  he  came 
again  when  his  native  State  was  invaded  by  Leslie  in 

1780,  and  fought  under  Greene  and  Steuben.    He  was 
out  again  to  fight  Arnold,  and  when  the  would-be 
seller  of  West  Point  had  been  repulsed,  Marshall,  still 
without  men  to  command,  resigned  his  commission  in 

1781.  The  war,  however,  was  then  practically  over, 
and  he  had  fought  all  through  it. 

Now  he  went  to  the  bar  and  began  to  practise  in 
earnest.  He  met  with  immediate  success  and  rose 
with  astonishing  rapidity.  Before  he  was  thirty  he 
was  an  acknowledged  leader  at  a  bar  of  remarkable 
ability.  With  professional  work  was  also  mingled 
much  service  in  the  General  Assembly,  to  which  he 
was  frequently  elected,  often  greatly  against  his 
own  wishes.  But  presently  came  the  convention 
to  consider  the  Constitution  just  framed  at  Phila 
delphia,  and  to  this  Marshall  desired  and  decided 
to  go.  Virginia  was  not  friendly  to  the  new  scheme ; 
his  own  county  was  strongly  against  it.  He  was 
told  that  if  he  would  promise  to  oppose  the  Constitu 
tion  his  return  would  not  be  contested.  He  replied 
that  he  wished  to  go  in  order  to  support  ratification, 


JOHN   MARSHALL  33 

ran,  and  was  elected  after  a  sharp  contest  in  a  hos 
tile  electorate  by  sheer  force  of  his  personal  strength 
and  popularity.  In  the  convention  he  played  a 
great  part.  He  contended  successfully  with  Patrick 
Henry,  and  if  he  had  not  the  glowing  eloquence  of 
the  elder  man,  there  was  none  stronger  than  he  in 
reasoning,  more  unanswerable,  more  convincing.  He 
was  one  of  the  determined  leaders  who  finally  wrung 
from  an  unfriendly  convention  an  unwilling  majority 
of  ten  votes  in  favor  of  the  Constitution. 

Back  he  went  to  his  courts  and  his  cases.  He  had 
gone  to  the  convention,  not  for  political  preferment, 
but  to  get  the  Constitution  ratified,  and  the  victory 
was  all  he  wanted.  Still  he  could  not  escape  service 
in  the  Assembly,  and  as  Washington's  administration 
developed  its  policies,  and  Virginia,  under  the  deli 
cate  manipulation  of  Jefferson,  turned  more  and 
more  against  her  great  President,  Marshall  fought  the 
battles  of  his  old  chief  in  the  Legislature,  and  on  one 
occasion,  at  least,  carried  a  vote  of  confidence  in  the 
National  Government.  Thus  without  thought  and 
in  his  own  despite  he  became  conspicuous  beyond 
the  borders  of  Virginia.  Public  men  in  other  States 
began  to  look  with  interest  and  admiration  upon  the 
lawyer  already  distinguished  at  the  bar  who,  with 
perfect  courage  and  great  intellectual  power,  was 
fighting  the  battle  of  Washington  in  an  anti-Federal 
ist  community ;  a  man  who  did  not  fear  even  to  de- 


34  JOHN   MARSHALL 

> 

fend  in  Virginia  the  Jay  treaty  in  the  darkest  hour 

of  its  unpopularity.  Marshall  himself  in  one  of  his 
rare  letters  speaks  of  the  warm  manner  in  which  the 
leading  New  England  Federalists  received  him  in 
Philadelphia,  filled  with  wonder  that  a  man  so  sound 
in  opinion  should  exist  in  Virginia. 

With  a  political  reputation  growing  and  expanding 
so  fast,  it  was  only  a  question  of  time  when  he  would 
be  called  to  do  national  work.  Washington  desired 
that  he  should  accept  the  mission  to  France,  but  he 
declined.  Later  the  same  offer  came  from  President 
Adams,  and  this  time  the  circumstances  were  such  that 
Marshall  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  accept.  Our  rela 
tions  with  France  had  gone  from  bad  to  worse.  The 
French  government  had  treated  us  as  if  we  were  little 
else  than  a  vassal  state.  They  had  seized  our  ships 
and  spared  us  no  insult.  The  spirit  of  the  country 
was  rising,  and  the  dominant  Federalists,  if  not 
eager,  were  certainly  not  averse  to  a  war  with  the 
revolutionary  government  at  Paris,  with  which  their 
political  opponents  sympathized  and  which  seemed  to 
them  representative  of  those  forces  of  anarchy  and 
disorder  which  it  was  their  own  especial  mission  on 
earth  to  combat.  Mr.  Adams,  however,  feeling  pro 
foundly,  as  Washington  had  felt  in  the  case  of  Eng 
land,  the  peril  of  war  to  our  new  government,  was 
determined  to  exhaust  every  effort  to  preserve  peace 
with  our  former  ally,  although  the  France  of  the 


JOHN   MARSHALL  35 

revolution  was  as  distasteful  to  him  as  to  any  of  the 
Federalist  leaders.  With  this  purpose  in  view  he 
joined  John  Marshall  and  Elbridge  Gerry  with 
Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  who  had  been  refused 
recognition  as  Minister,  in  a  special  mission  of  peace 
to  settle  the  differences  between  the  two  countries. 
This  was  the  duty  which  Marshall  felt  he  could  not 
refuse,  and  he  accordingly  sailed  from  Philadelphia 
for  Amsterdam  on  the  17th  of  July,  1797. 

Into  the  history  of  that  famous  mission  it  is  not 
necessary  to  enter.  The  course  of  the  Directory  and 
of  Talleyrand  was  in  all  ways  characteristic  of  one 
of  the  most  corrupt  governments  of  modern  times. 
Our  envoys  were  flouted,  refused  recognition  or  recep 
tion,  and  were  informed  by  base  but  accurate  agents 
that  their  only  way  to  obtain  their  object  was  to 
bribe,  first,  Talleyrand,  then  the  Directory,  and  then 
France  herself.  The  American  envoys,  like  honest 
men,  rejected  all  these  advances  absolutely  and  with 
ill-concealed  disgust.  The  American  case,  stated  in 
an  argument  of  great  ability,  drawn  by  John  Mar 
shall,  was  also  laid  before  Talleyrand.  But  that 
eminent  person  was  not  interested  in  arguments. 
What  he  wanted  was  money.  Pinckney  and  Mar 
shall  saw  this  clearly  enough,  secured  their  passports, 
not,  it  may  be  added,  without  incurring  plenty  of 
fresh  insults,  and  took  their  departure.  Gerry,  de 
luded  and  hoodwinked  by  Talleyrand,  remained,  and 


36  JOHN   MARSHALL 

when  a  new  commission  was  sent  peace  was  made, 
not  because  Gerry  stayed  or  because  John  Adams 
broke  with  his  party  in  renewing  his  efforts  for 
peaceful  settlement,  but  because  hostilities  had  begun, 
and  Truxtun's  guns  and  shattered  French  frigates  had 
taught  France  that  if  we  would  not  bribe  we  could 
at  least  fight.  When  Marshall  returned  to  America 
he  found  events  had  moved  rapidly  toward  the  fight 
ing  stage.  The  letters  inviting  our  envoys  to  bribery 
and  corruption  as  well  as  to  humiliation  had  been 
published,  and  the  country  was  filled  with  righteous 
wrath.  Marshall  was  received  with  acclaim  as  loud 
as  it  was  deserved,  and  it  was  at  a  banquet  in  his 
honor  that  the  words  attributed  to  Pinckney  were 
given  as  a  toast :  "  Millions  for  defence,  but  not  one 
cent  for  tribute."  This  was  the  sentiment  of  the 
country  as  well  as  of  the  dinner-table,  and  it  por 
tended  a  severe  reaction  against  the  party  of  France 
so  ably  led  by  Jefferson. 

Into  that  party  struggle  Marshall  had  no  inten 
tion  of  entering.  He  had  performed  well  and  fear 
lessly  a  duty  which  he  had  not  sought,  and  his  one 
wish  now  was  to  go  back  to  his  office  and  his  clients 
and  to  the  profession  which  he  loved.  But  it  was 
not  to  be.  President  Adams  offered  him  a  seat  on 
the  Supreme  Court  Bench,  which  he  declined,  but 
refusal  was  not  so  easy  when  he  was  summoned  to 
Mount  Vernon  and  urged  to  stand  for  Congress. 


JOHN   MARSHALL  37 

The  course  of  Jefferson  and  the  anti- Federalists  with 
their  French  sympathies  had  alarmed  Washington 
profoundly.  He  felt  that  in  order  to  sustain  the 
government  the  Federalist  party  must  be  supported. 
He  had  led  that  party  in  his  last  years  of  office,  and 
he  was  so  impressed  by  the  political  perils  of  the 
time  and  by  the  growing  power  of  foreign  influence 
that  he  could  not  remain  inactive  now.  So  Marshall 
listened  to  the  voice  which  seldom  spoke  in  vain  to 
any  American  a  century  ago,  and  much  against  his 
will  became  a  candidate  for  Congress.  His  honest 
and  manly  stand  in  Paris  and  the  honor  and  ap 
plause  he  had  gained  at  home,  however,  could  not 
save  him  from  the  attacks  of  Jefferson  and  his  fol 
lowers.  They  opposed  him  strenuously,  crying  out 
against  him  as  a  monarchist,  which  was  the  Jeffer- 
sonian  language  to  describe  any  man  who  liked  a 
strong  central  government  or  who  believed  that  the 
United  States  was  a  nation  and  not  an  alliance  of 
petty  republics.  The  contest  was  heated  and  the 
majority  small,  but  Marshall  won,  and  aided  by  his 
personal  popularity  carried  the  Richmond  district,  — 
a  very  considerable  feat. 

The  Congress  to  which  he  was  chosen  was  a  mem 
orable  one.  The  Federalist  party  by  sheer  force  of 
ability,  not  only  in  the  Executive  but  in  both 
branches  of  Congress,  had  established  the  new 
government,  organized  its  machinery,  and  founded 


38  JOHN   MARSHALL 

its  policies.  It  was  a  vitally  necessary  work,  but 
the  men  who  had  wrought  it  had  not  only  incurred 
the  usual  hostility  which  always  meets  those  who 
are  doers  of  deeds,  but  they  also  had  the  additional 
unpopularity  which  was  due  both  to  their  superior 
abilities  and  their  uncompromising  and  often  over 
bearing  methods.  They  had  carried  their  measures 
with  difficulty,  for  they  rarely  possessed  a  working 
majority  in  Congress,  and  this  condition  had  been  a 
useful  check  upon  them.  Now,  however,  the  attempt 
of  France  to  bribe  our  envoys  had  produced  a  just  re 
vulsion  of  feeling  against  the  party  of  Jefferson, 
which  had  made  extravagant  admiration  of  France 
a  test  of  American  patriotism,  and  in  the  true  colonial 
spirit  forced  our  politics  to  turn  upon  the  affairs 
of  Europe.  The  Federalists  carried  the  election 
triumphantly,  and  found  themselves  with  a  majority 
such  as  they  had  never  known.  Successful  and 
effective  under  difficult  and  adverse  conditions, 
unlimited  power  turned  their  heads,  and  their  over 
bearing  and  arrogant  tendencies  asserted  themselves. 
Their  victory  became  the  precursor  of  their  ruin. 

John  Marshall,  living  in  a  hostile  atmosphere,  a 
Federalist  in  Virginia,  was  a  party  man  of  the  hard 
fibre  which  is  found  under  such  circumstances,  but 
he  also  had  learned  in  the  same  school  to  gauge 
public  opinion  and  the  possibilities  of  action  far 
better  than  the  men  of  the  North,  accustomed  to 


JOHN   MARSHALL  39 

Federalist  supremacy.  Extreme  men  from  New 
England .  thought  him  over-moderate,  if  not  waver 
ing,  because  he  voted  against  those  natural  but  most 
injudicious  measures,  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Acts. 
In  doing  so  Marshall  was  neither  timid  nor  waver 
ing,  but  simply  wise,  as  the  events  of  the  next  four 
years  were  to  show.  And  if  his  critics  could  have 
looked  afar  into  the  future  they  would  have  seen 
the  Virginian  Federalist,  whose  beliefs  were  founded 
upon  a  rock,  alone  and  in  the  midst  of  enemies  up 
holding  and  extending  the  principles  they  loved, 
when  many  of  their  own  faith  had  deserted  or 
fallen  by  the  wayside,  after  their  party  organiza 
tion  had  disappeared,  and  even  when  their  great 
party  name  had  passed  out  of  existence  and  was 
heard  only  as  a  byword  and  a  reproach. 

But  whether  thought  too  moderate  in  his  views  or 
not,  John  Marshall  went  to  the  front  as  a  leader  of 
his  party  and  as  a  leader  of  the  House.  He  shrank 
from  no  conflict,  and  upheld  the  fundamental  prin 
ciples  of  his  party  in  a  manner  of  which  few  men 
were  capable.  The  conspicuous  triumph  of  his  con 
gressional  career,  and  space  forbids  the  mention  of 
any  other,  was  his  argument  in  the  Jonathan  Rob- 
bins  case.  Thomas  Nash,  alias  Jonathan  Robbins, 
taking  part  in  a  mutiny,  had  committed  a  murder 
on  a  British  frigate,  escaped,  been  captured  in  this 
country,  and  then  resisted  extradition  on  the 


40  JOHN   MARSHALL 

ground  that  he  was  an  American  who  had  been 
impressed.  President  Adams  directed  that  he 
should  be  given  up  if  his  identity  were  proved  as 
well  as  grounds  sufficient  for  commitment  had  the 
crime  been  committed  in  the  United  States.  The 
court  thought  both  facts  were  proved,  and  the  man, 
who  later  confessed  that  he  was  not  an  American, 
was  given  up  by  the  President's  order  under  a 
clause  of  the  Jay  treaty.  It  is  quite  needless  to 
explain  that  an  administration  which  undertakes  to 
respect  and  fulfil  treaty  obligations  to  England  is 
an  inviting  object  of  attack  to  the  thinkers  of  the 
opposing  party,  and  presents  a  tempting  field  for 
the  investment  of  political  capital.  Mr.  Livingston 
of  New  York  introduced  a  resolution  censuring  the 
President  for  his  action,  more  especially  for  his  inter 
ference  with  the  judiciary,  and  Marshall  spoke  for 
the  defence.  Into  that  luminous  and  convincing 
argument  I  cannot  enter  here.  Albert  Gallatin  sat 
near  the  speaker  taking  notes  for  a  reply.  The 
pencil  moved  more  and  more  slowly,  the  notes  be 
came  fewer  and  fewer,  and  at  last  stopped.  "  Do 
you  not  mean  to  reply  to  him?"  said  a  friend. 
'*  I  do  not/'  said  Gallatin,  "  because  I  cannot." 
Many  of  the  opposition  thought  the  same,  and  the 
resolution  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  nearly  two 
to  one. 

Marshall's  career  in  the  House,  however,  was  as 


JOHN   MARSHALL  41 

short  as  it  was  brilliant.  The  break  had  finally  come 
between  Mr.  Adams  and  the  Hamiltonian  Federalists 
in  his  cabinet  whom  he  had  inherited  from  Wash 
ington.  Wherever  the  right  lay  it  was  a  lamentable 
business,  and  a  potent  cause  of  the  Federalist  defeat. 
The  remoter  consequences  of  this  famous  quarrel  do 
not  concern  us  here,  but  the  immediate  result  was 
the  retirement  of  McHenry  from  the  War  Depart 
ment,  which  was  at  once  offered  to  Marshall  and 
declined.  Hard  upon  McHenry's  withdrawal  came 
that  of  Pickering  from  the  Department  of  State,  and 
this  great  post  Marshall  accepted,  resigning  his  seat  in 
Congress  in  order  to  do  so.  It  was  a  difficult  and 
thankless  task  to  assume  these  duties  just  at  the  close 
of  an  administration,  with  defeat  impending  and  the 
party  divided  into  bitterly  hostile  factions.  Yet 
such  was  Marshall's  tact  and  such  the  respect  for  his 
character  that  he  commanded  the  confidence  of  the 
whole  party.  He  completely  satisfied  Mr.  Adams 
and  yet  retained  the  intimate  friendship  of  Hamil 
ton.  He  was  entirely  true  to  the  President's  policy 
and  yet  held  the  admiring  regard  of  Wolcott,  and 
even  of  Pickering,  whom  he  supplanted.  In  the 
foreign  relations  with  which  he  was  charged  the  time 
was  too  short  for  the  full  development  of  his  influ 
ence,  but  we  can  see  in  his  despatches  the  strong 
American  spirit  and  the  quiet  but  unflinching  way 
in  which  he  gave  other  nations  to  understand  that 


42  JOHN   MARSHALL 

we  must  go  along  our  own  paths,  and  that  our  deal 
ings  with  one  nation  were  no  rightful  concern  of  any 
other. 

The  last  troubled  months  of  the  Adams  adminis 
tration,  however,  soon  came  to  an  end.  On  the  4th 
of  March,  1801,  a  month  after  he  had  been  sworn  in 
as  Chief  Justice,  Marshall  retired  from  the  State  De 
partment.  Let  us  look  at  him  a  moment  as  he 
stands  at  the  threshold  of  his  great  career.  He  is 
forty-five  years  old  and  in  the  full  maturity  of  his 
powers.  He  is  very  tall,  very  spare,  rather  loose- 
jointed  and  careless  in  his  movements.  A  little  un 
gainly,  perhaps,  one  observer  thinks,  with  the  air  of 
the  mountains  and  of  the  early  outdoor  life  still  about 
him.  Evidently  muscular  and  strong;  temperate, 
too,  with  all  the  vigor  of  health  and  constitution 
which  any  work  or  responsibility  may  demand.  He 
is  not  handsome  of  face  with  his  angular  features  and 
thick,  unruly  hair  growing  low  on  his  forehead  over 
rather  small  but  very  piercing  black  eyes.  None  the 
less  the  face  is  full  of  intelligence  and  force,  and  all 
observers,  however  much  they  differ  in  details,  alike 
agree  that  the  bright  eyes  are  full  of  fun,  and  that 
about  the  firm-set  mouth  there  plays  a  smile  which 
tells  of  that  generous  and  hearty  sense  of  humor 
which  pierces  sham  and,  as  Story  says,  is  too  honest 
for  intrigue. 

No  one  can  say  to-day  whether  Marshall  realized 


JOHN   MARSHALL  43 

as  he  left  the  State  Department  that  the  great  work 
of  his  life  lay  all  before  him.  We  know  it  now, —  know 
that  all  his  past  career  had  been  only  preparatory  for 
that  which  was  to  come.  And  what  a  training  it 
had  been !  First  of  all,  he  was  a  lawyer,  made  so  by 
the  strong  bent  of  his  mind,  in  the  full  tide  of  suc 
cessful  practice,  and  holding  his  well-won  place  in 
the  front  rank  of  the  American  bar.  He  had  been 
a  soldier  of  long  and  hard  service,  and  had  faced 
death  in  battle  many  times.  A  wide  parliamentary 
experience  had  been  his,  drawn  from  many  terms  in 
the  Virginia  Legislature,  from  the  Constitutional  Con 
vention,  and  a  session  of  Congress.  He  had  been  in 
Europe,  had  seen  European  politics  at  close  range, 
and  had  measured  swords  with  the  ablest,  most  un 
scrupulous,  and  most  corrupt  statesman  and  diplo 
matist  of  the  Old  World.  He  had  served  as  a 
Cabinet  Minister,  and  there  had  studied  the  relations 
of  his  country  to  the  movements  of  world  politics. 
He  had  been  a  man  of  affairs  great  and  small,  and 
had  lived  and  fought  in  the  world  of  men.  This 
varied  education,  these  diverse  experiences,  may 
seem  to  have  been  superfluous  for  one  who  was  to 
fill  a  purely  judicial  office,  and  yet  they  were  never 
more  valuable  to  any  man  than  to  him  who  was  to 
be  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  at  that  pre 
cise  period.  When  Marshall  laid  down  the  states 
man's  office  and  took  up  that  of  the  lawyer,  his  work 


44  JOHN   MARSHALL 

as  a  statesman  was  still  to  do.    How  great  that  work 
was  I  shall  try  to  show. 

When  Marshall  took  his  seat  on  the  Supreme  Bench, 
he  brought  with  him  not  only  his  legal  genius  and 
training  and  his  wide  and  various  experience  in  poli 
tics  and  diplomacy,  but  also  certain  fixed  convictions. 
He  was  a  man  who  formed  opinions  slowly,  and  who 
did  not  indulge  himself  in  a  large  collection  of  cardi 
nal  principles.  But  the  opinions  which  he  formed 
and  the  principles  which  he  adopted  after  much  hard 
and  silent  thought  were  immovable,  and  by  them  he 
steered,  for  they  were  as  constant  as  the  stars.  He 
had  one  of  those  rare  minds  which  never  confound 
the  passing  with  the  eternal  or  mix  the  accidental 
and  trivial  with  the  things  vital  and  necessary. 
Hence  the  compatibility  between  his  absolute  fixity 
of  purpose  in  certain  well-ascertained  directions  and 
his  wise  moderation  and  large  tolerance  as  to  all  else. 
To  these  qualities  was  joined  another  even  rarer,  the 
power  of  knowing  what  the  essential  principle  was. 
In  every  controversy  and  in  every  argument  he  went 
unerringly  to  the  heart  of  the  question,  for  he  had 
that  mental  quality  which  Dr.  Holmes  compared  to 
the  instinct  of  the  tiger  for  the  jugular  vein.  As  he 
plucked  out  the  heart  of  a  law  case  or  a  debate  in 
Congress,  so  he  seized  on  the  question  which  over 
rode  all  others  in  the  politics  of  the  United  States 
and  upon  which  all  else  turned. 


JOHN  MARSHALL  45 

This  vital  question  was  whether  the  United  States 
should  be  a  nation,  or  a  confederacy  of  jarring  and 
petty  republics,  destined  to  strife,  disintegration,  and 
decay.  In  a  well-known  letter  to  a  friend,  Marshall  says 
that  he  entered  the  Eevolution  filled  with  "  wild  and 
enthusiastic  notions."  Most  young  men  of  that  period, 
imbued  with  such  ideas,  remained  under  their  control, 
and  in  the  course  of  events  became  ardent  sympathizers 
with  the  unbridled  fanaticisms  of  the  French  Eevolu 
tion,  or  at  least  ardent  opponents  of  anything  like  a 
strong  and  well-ordered  government,  and  equally 
zealous  supporters  of  State  rights  and  separatist  doc 
trines.  Not  so  John  Marshall.  With  characteristic 
modesty  he  ascribes  the  fact  that  he  did  not  continue 
under  the  dominion  of  his  "wild  and  enthusiastic 
notions"  to  accident  and  circumstances  when  it 
really  was  due  to  his  own  clear  and  powerful  intel 
lect.  In  the  struggle  with  England  he  came  to  see 
that  the  only  hope  of  victory  lay  in  devotion  to  a 
common  cause,  in  being  soldiers  of  the  Union  and 
not  of  separate  colonies,  and  that  the  peril  was  in  the 
weakness  of  the  general  government.  It  seems 
simple  enough  to  say  this  now,  but  the  central  idea 
was  as  a  rule  grasped  feebly  and  imperfectly,  if  at 
all,  by  the  young  men  of  that  period.  Like  Hamilton, 
Marshall  worked  it  out  for  himself ;  and  in  that  same 
letter  he  says  that  it  was  during  the  war  that  he 
came  to  regard  America  as  his  country  and  Congress 


46  JOHN  MARSHALL 

as  his  government.  From  that  time  he  was  an 
American  first  and  a  Virginian  second,  and  from  the 
convictions  thus  formed  in  camp  and  on  the  march 
he  never  swerved.  Here  was  the  ruling  principle 
of  his  public  life,  and  to  the  establishment  of  that 
principle  his  whole  career  and  all  his  great  powers 
were  devoted.  This  made  him  a  Federalist.  It  was 
this  very  devotion  to  a  fundamental  principle  which 
was  the  source  of  that  temperate  wisdom  which 
made  him  avoid  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Acts,  because 
by  their  violence  they  endangered  the  success  of  the 
party  which  had  in  charge  something  too  precious  to 
be  risked  by  indulging  even  the  just  passion  of  the 
moment.  But  the  moderation  in  what  he  regarded 
as  non-essential  was  accompanied  by  an  absolutely 
unyielding  attitude  when  the  vital  question  was 
touched.  Despite  the  criticisms  of  the  extreme 
Federalists  upon  his  liberality,  there  was  no  more 
rigid  believer  in  the  principles  which  had  brought 
that  party  into  existence  than  the  man  who  became 
Chief  Justice  one  hundred  years  ago. 

Holding  these  beliefs,  what  was  there  for  him  to 
do,  what  could  he  do  in  a  position  wholly  judicial 
and  with  every  other  branch  of  the  government  in 
the  hands  of  his  political  foes  ?  He  was  confined  to  a 
strictly  limited  province.  To  his  political  opponents 
the  entire  field  of  political  action  was  open.  At  the 
head  of  these  opponents  was  Thomas  Jefferson,  who 


JOHN  MARSHALL  47 

hated  him  intensely.  It  could  not  well  be  otherwise. 
Not  only  were  these  two  Virginians  politically 
opposed,  but  they  were  antagonistic  in  nature  and 
temperament.  "  There  are  some  men/'  said  Rufus 
Choate,  "  whom  we  hate  for  cause,  and  others  whom 
we  hate  peremptorily."  Both  descriptions  apply  to 
the  feeling  which  Jefferson  cherished  toward  Mar 
shall.  They  were  as  wide  apart  as  the  poles.  Jeffer 
son  wrote  brave,  blustering  words  about  the  desir 
ability  of  "  watering  the  tree  of  liberty  once  in 
twenty  years  with  the  blood  of  tyrants,"  and  was  him 
self  the  most  peaceful  of  men,  one  who  shrank  from  war 
and  recoiled  from  bloodshed,  and  who  was  a  rather 
grotesque  figure  of  a  war  governor  in  hurried  flight 
when  the  British  invaded  Virginia.  Marshall  had 
served  in  the  army  for  five  years.  The  hunger  and  cold 
of  Valley  Forge,  the  trials  of  the  march,  the  dangers  of 
retreat,  the  perils  of  many  battles,  the  grim  hazards 
of  the  night  assault,  were  all  familiar  to  him,  and  he 
never  talked  at  all  about  watering  anything  with 
blood  or  about  bloodshed  of  any  sort.  Jefferson  was 
timid  in  action ;  subtle,  acute,  and  brilliant  in  intellect, 
given  to  creeping  methods.  To  him,  therefore,  Mar 
shall,  the  man  of  powerful  mind,  who  was  as  simple 
and  direct  as  he  was  absolutely  fearless,  and  who 
marched  straight  to  his  object  with  his  head  up  and  his 
eyes  on  his  foe,  was  particularly  obnoxious.  Marshall, 
moreover,  had  crossed  Jefferson  in  many  ways.  He 


48  JOHN  MARSHALL 

had  led  opposition  to  him  in  Virginia,  and  had 
wrested  from  him  a  Congressional  district.  Now 
Marshall  was  placed  in  a  great  position,  beyond  the 
reach  of  assault,  and  yet  where  he  could  observe, 
and  perhaps  thwart,  Jefferson's  most  cherished 
schemes.  Marshall  in  his  own  way  entirely  recipro 
cated  Jefferson's  feelings.  He  distrusted  him  and 
despised  his  methods,  his  foreign  prejudices,  and, 
what  seemed  to  Marshall,  his  devious  ways.  So 
strong  was  this  hostility  that  it  almost  led  him  to 
make  what  would  have  been  the  one  political  mis 
take  of  his  life,  by  supporting  Burr  for  the  Presi 
dency  when  the  election  of  1800  was  thrown  into 
the  House  of  Representatives.  From  this  he  was 
saved  by  his  own  wisdom  and  good  sense,  which 
were  convinced,  by  Hamilton's  reasoning,  that  Jeffer 
son,  whom  Marshall  knew,  was  a  less  evil  than  Burr, 
whom  he  did  not  know,  but  who  was  known  only 
too  well  to  Hamilton.1 

1  He  wrote  of  Jefferson  to  Hamilton  in  1801  that  "  by  weakening 
the  office  of  President  he  will  increase  his  personal  power.  He  will 
diminish  his  reponsibility,  sap  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
government,  and  become  the  leader  of  that  party  which  is  about  to 
constitute  the  majority  in  the  legislature.  The  morals  of  the  author 
of  the  letter  to  Mazzei  cannot  be  pure." 

Van  Santvoord  says,  in  his  "Lives  of  the  Chief  Justices,"  p.  342, 
on  the  authority  of  an  eyewitness,  that  after  Burr's  trial  there  was 
a  final  cessation  of  all  personal  intercourse  between  Jefferson  and 
Marshall,  and  that  two  or  three  of  the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
followed  the  example  of  their  chief. 

Age  did  not  change  or  soften  Marshall's  opinion  of  Jefferson.     In 


JOHN  MARSHALL  49 


u  \jn.ix    i>i^i.rwon^Lui^ 

Jefferson  and  his  party  came  into  power  with 
great  predominance  destined  to  grow  more  comple 


1821  (July  13)  he  wrote  to  Judge  Story  (Proceedings  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  for  October  and  November,  1900,  p.  328)  : 

"What  you  say  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  letter  rather  grieves  than  sur 
prises  me.*  It  grieves  me  because  his  influence  is  still  so  great  that 
many,  very  many,  will  adopt  his  opinions,  however  unsound  they 
may  be,  and  however  contradictory  to  their  own  reason.  I  cannot 
describe  the  surprise  and  mortification  I  have  felt  at  hearing  that  Mr. 
Madison  has  embraced  them  with  respect  to  the  judicial  department. 

"  For  Mr.  Jefferson's  opinion  as  respects  this  department  it  is  not 
difficult  to  assign  the  cause.  He  is  among  the  most  ambitious,  and,  I 
suspect,  among  the  most  unforgiving  of  men.  His  great  power  is 
over  the  mass  of  the  people,  and  this  power  is  chiefly  acquired  by 
professions  of  democracy.  Every  check  on  the  wild  impulse  of  the 
moment  is  a  check  on  his  own  power,  and  he  is  unfriendly  to  the 
source  from  which  it  flows.  He  looks,  of  course,  with  ill  will  at  an 
independent  judiciary. 

"  That  in  a  free  country  with  a  written  constitution  any  intelligent 
man  should  wish  a  dependent  judiciary,  or  should  think  that  the 
Constitution  is  not  a  law  for  the  court  as  well  as  the  legislature,  would 
astonish  me,  if  I  had  not  learnt  from  observation  that  with  many 
men  the  judgment  is  completely  controlled  by  the  passions.  The 
case  of  the  mandamus  may  be  the  cloak,  but  the  Batture  f  is  recol 
lected  with  still  more  resentment." 

Again  he  wrote  on  September  18,  1821 : 

"  A  deep  design  to  convert  our  government  into  a  mere  league  of 
States  has  taken  strong  hold  of  a  powerful  and  violent  party  in  Vir 
ginia.  The  attack  upon  the  judiciary  is  in  fact  an  attack  upon  the 
Union.  The  judicial  department  is  well  understood  to  be  that 
through  which  the  government  may  be  attacked  most  successfully, 
because  it  is  without  patronage,  and  of  course  without  power.  And 
it  is  equally  well  understood  that  every  subtraction  from  its  jurisdic 
tion  is  a  vital  wound  to  the  government  itself.  The  attack  upon  it 

*  The  letter  here  commented  on  was  probably  the  letter  to  William  C.  Jarvis, 
printed  in  Washington's  edition  of  the  Writings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  vol.  7,  pp. 
177-179,  in  which  Jefferson  denies  the  right  of  the  Judges  to  issue  a  mandamus  to 
any  "executive  or  legislative  officer  to  enforce  the  fulfilment  of  their  official  duties," 
and  asserts  that  it  is  a  "very  dangerous  doctrine"  to  "consider  the  judges  as  the 
ultimate  arbiters  of  all  constitutional  questions." 

t  The  first  of  these  references  is  to  the  opinion  of  the  Chief  Justice  in  the  case  of 
Marbury  v.  Madison  (1  Cranch,  153).  The  second  reference  is  to  the  protracted 
litigation  which  involved  the  title  to  what  was  known  as  the  Batture,  near  New 
Orleans,  and  in  which  Mr.  Jefferson  took  a  strong  personal  interest. 

4 


50  JOHN  MARSHALL 

as  the  years  went  by.  They  were  in  principle 
hostile  to  the  government  which  they  were  chosen 
to  conduct.  They  were  flushed  with  victory.  They 
meant  to  sweep  away  all  the  Federalists  had  done ; 

therefore  is  a  masked  battery  aimed  at  the  government  itself.  The 
whole  attack,  if  not  originating  with  Mr.  Jefferson,  is  obviously 
approved  and  guided  by  him.  It  is  therefore  formidable  in  other 
States  as  well  as  in  this,  and  it  behooves  the  friends  of  the  Union  to 
be  more  on  the  alert  than  they  have  been.  An  effort  will  certainly 
be  made  to  repeal  the  twenty-fifth  section  of  the  judicial  act." 

In  December,  1832,  he  wrote  to  Judga  Story  about  the  nullification 
resolutions  of  South  Carolina,  then  under  discussion  in  Virginia. 
The  following  passage  is  of  great  interest  as  showing  his  profound 
comprehension  of  the  movement  coupled  with  his  accurate  prediction 
of  the  fate  of  West  Virginia,  which  came  to  pass  thirty  years  later, 
as  well  as  his  undying  feeling  against  Jefferson  as  the  originator  of 
these  evils : 

"  On  Thursday  these  resolutions  are  to  be  taken  up,  and  the  debate 
will,  I  doubt  not,  be  ardent  and  tempestuous  enough.  I  pretend  not 
to  anticipate  the  result.  Should  it  countenance  the  obvious  design  of 
South  Carolina  to  form  a  Southern  Confederacy,  it  may  conduce  to  a 
southern  league  —  never  to  a  Southern  government.  Our  theories  are 
incompatible  with  a  government  for  more  than  a  single  State.  We 
can  form  no  union  which  shall  be  closer  than  an  alliance  between 
sovereigns.  In  this  event  there  is  some  reason  to  apprehend  internal 
convulsion.  The  northern  and  western  section  of  our  State,  should 
a  union  be  maintained  north  of  the  Potomac,  will  not  readily  connect 
itself  with  the  South.  At  least,  such  is  the  present  belief  of  their 
most  intelligent  men.  Any  effort  on  their  part  to  separate  from 
Southern  Virginia  and  unite  with  a  Northern  Confederacy  may  proba 
bly  be  punished  as  treason.  '  We  have  fallen  on  evil  times.'" 

"  I  thank  you  for  Mr.  Webster's  speech.  Entertaining  the  opinion 
he  has  expressed  respecting  the  general  course  of  the  administration, 
his  patriotism  is  entitled  to  the  more  credit  for  the  determination  he 
expressed  at  Faneuil  Hall  to  support  it  in  the  great  effort  it  promises 
to  make  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  No  member  .of  the  then 
opposition  avowed  a  similar  determination  during  the  Western  Insur 
rection,  which  would  have  been  equally  fatal  had  it  not  been  quelled 
by  the  well-timed  vigor  of  General  Washington.  We  are  now  gather 
ing  the  bitter  fruits  of  the  tree  even  before  that  time  planted  by 
Mr.  Jefferson,  and  so  industriously  and  perseveringly  cultivated  by 
Virginia." 


JOHN   MARSHALL  51 

they  intended  to  interpret  the  Constitution  until 
naught  was  left  and  put  the  national  government 
and  the  national  life  into  a  strait-jacket.  In  the 
process  of  time  they  found  themselves  helpless  in 
the  grip  of  circumstances  and  governing  by  the 
system  of  Washington  and  Hamilton,  whose  methods 
and  organization  were  too  strong  for  them  to  over 
throw.  But  at  the  start  this  was  not  apparent. 
The  separatist  principle  seemed  to  be  supreme,  and 
Jefferson's  followers  threw  themselves  upon  the  work 
of  the  Federalists,  and  in  their  rage  even  undertook 
to  break  down  the  judiciary  by  the  process  of  im 
peachment,  —  a  scheme  which  failed  miserably,  but 
which  no  doubt  cherished  the  hope  of  reaching  at 
last  to  the  chief  of  all  the  Judges. 

In  their  pleasant  plans  and  anticipations  of  re 
venge  it  must  have  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  stop 
the  onset  of  an  all-powerful  President  backed  by 
a  subservient  Congress.  Surely  the  national  prin 
ciple,  the  national  life,  the  broad  construction  of  the 
Constitution,  would  shrivel  away  before  such  an 
attack.  There  seemed  no  one  in  the  way,  for  how 
ever  much  Jefferson,  ever  watchful,  may  have  sus 
pected,  his  own  followers  certainly  did  not  reckon 
as  very  formidable  the  great  lawyer  sitting  far  apart 
in  the  cold  seclusion  of  a  court  room.  Yet  there 
the  enemy  was.  There  he  sat  intrenched.  His 
powers  were  limited,  but  his  opponents  were  to  find 


52  JOHN  MARSHALL 

out  what  he  could  do  with  them.  They  were  to 
learn  by  bitter  experiences  that  even  these  limited 
powers  in  the  hands  of  a  great  man  were  sufficient 
to  extend  the  Constitution  and  to  build  it  up  faster 
and  far  more  surely  than  they  by  Executive  act  or 
Congressional  speeches  could  narrow  it  or  pull  it 
down.  Those  of  them  who  survived  were  destined 
to  behold  the  ark  of  the  national  life,  carried  through 
the  dark  years  of  the  first  decade  of  the  century, 
emerge  in  safety  ere  the  second  closed,  and  the 
national  principle  which  they  had  sought  to  smother 
rise  up  in  great  assertion  and  with  a  more  splendid 
vitality  than  any  one  dreamed  possible  as  the  fourth 
decade  began  and  the  man  who  had  done  the  deed  sank 
into  his  grave  in  all  the  majesty  of  his  eighty  years. 

How  did  John  Marshall  do  this  work,  this  states 
man's  work  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  ? 
It  is  all  there  in  his  decisions.  To  show  it  forth  as 
it  deserves  would  require  a  volume.  Only  an  out 
line  which  will  roughly  mark  out  the  highest  peaks 
in  the  range  is  possible  here. 

The  first  blow  was  struck  in  1803,  in  the  famous 
case  of  Marbury  against  Madison.  Marbury  applied 
for  a  mandamus  to  compel  Mr.  Madison  to  deliver 
to  him  his  commission  as  justice  of  the  peace,  which 
had  been  signed  and  sealed  by  Mr.  Adams  and 
withheld  by  his  successor.  Marshall  held  that  the 
applicant  had  a  right  to  the  commission;  that  his 


JOHN   MARSHALL  53 

right  having  been  violated,  the  law  of  the  country 
afforded  a  remedy ;  that  the  case  in  its  nature 
was  one  for  mandamus,  but  that  being  an  original 
process,  the  Supreme  Court  had  no  jurisdiction,  be 
cause  the  act  of  Congress  conferring  such  jurisdic 
tion,  not  being  authorized  by  the  Constitution,  was 
null  and  void.  He  declared,  in  other  words,  that 
the  Constitution  was  supreme,  that  any  law  of  Con 
gress  in  conflict  with  it  was  null  and  void,  that  the 
Supreme  Court  was  to  decide  whether  this  conflict 
existed ;  and  then,  going  beyond  the  point  involved, 
he  boldly  announced  that  if  the  application  had  been 
properly  made,  the  Federal  court  could  compel  the 
Executive  to  perform  a  certain  act.  At  one  stroke 
he  lifted  the  National  Constitution  to  the  height 
of  authority,  and  made  the  tremendous  assertion  of 
power  in  the  court,  which  he  declared  could  nullify 
the  action  of  Congress  and  control  that  of  the  Ex 
ecutive  if  the  necessary  conditions  should  arise. 
Small  wonder  is  it  that  Jefferson  was  irritated  and 
alarmed  to  the  last  degree,  and  that  he  complained 
bitterly  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Chief  Justice 
had  travelled  out  of  the  record  in  order  to  tell  the 
world  that  he  might,  if  he  so  willed,  curb  the  author 
ity  of  the  President.  But  the  assertion  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  power 
of  the  court  to  decide  a  law  unconstitutional  has 
remained  unshaken  from  that  day  to  this. 


54  JOHN   MARSHALL 

In  Marbury  against  Madison,  Marshall  asserted 
the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution  and  the  power  of 
the  court  in  relation  to  the  other  branches  of  the 
National  Government.  But  important  and  far  reach 
ing  as  this  was,  the  vital  struggle  was  not  among 
the  departments  created  by  the  same  instrument. 
The  conflict  upon  which  the  fate  of  the  country 
turned  was  between  the  forces  of  union  and  the 
forces  of  separation,  between  the  power  of  the  nation 
and  the  rights  of  the  States.  It  was  here  that  Mar 
shall  did  his  greatest  work,  and  it  was  this  issue 
which  he  desired  to  meet  above  all  others. 

In  the  case  of  the  United  States  against  Peters  in 
1809,  he  decided  that  a  State  could  not  annul  the 
judgment,  or  determine  the  jurisdiction,  or  destroy 
rights,  acquired  under  the  judgments  of  the  courts 
of  the  United  States.  Thus  he  set  the  national 
courts  above  the  States,  and  he  followed  this  up  in 
the  following  year  by  deciding,  in  Fletcher  against 
Peck,  that  a  grant  of  lands  was  a  contract  within 
the  meaning  of  the  Constitution,  and  that  a  State 
law  annulling  such  a  grant  was  in  conflict  with  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  therefore  null 
and  void.  The  United  States  courts,  it  was  to  be 
henceforth  understood,  were  not  only  above  and  be 
yond  the  reach  of  State  legislatures,  but  they  could 
nullify  the  laws  of  such  legislatures.  No  heavier  or 
better  directed  blow  was  ever  struck  against  State 


JOHN   MARSHALL  55 

rights  when  those  rights  were  invoked  in  order  to 
thwart  or  cripple  the  national  power. 

The  trial  of  Burr  in  1807,  although  not  bearing 
upon  the  central  principles  to  which  Marshall  de 
voted  his  best  efforts,  gave  him  an  opportunity  to 
define  treason  under  the  Constitution.  On  this 
memorable  trial  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  stood 
between  the  accused,  whom  the  government  wished 
to  destroy,  and  the  just  popular  sentiment  which 
would  have  fain  hurried  Burr  to  the  gallows.  That 
Marshall's  rulings  were  correct  and  that  he  laid 
down  the  American  law  and  definition  of  treason  in 
a  manner  which  subsequent  generations  have  ac 
cepted,  cannot  be  questioned.  But  this  cannot  be 
said  of  the  famous  ruling  by  which  he  granted  the 
motion  to  issue  a  subpoena  duces  tecum,  directed  to 
the  President  of  the  United  States.  If  his  desire 
was  to  fill  Jefferson  with  impotent  anger  and  with  a 
sense  of  affront  and  humiliation,  he  succeeded  amply. 
In  any  other  view  granting  the  motion  was  a  fail 
ure  and  a  mistake,  for  instead  of  exhibiting  the 
power  of  the  court  it  showed  its  limitations.  The 
Chief  Executive  of  the  nation  clearly  cannot  be 
brought  to  court  against  his  will,  for  higher  duties 
are  imposed  upon  him,  and  still  more  decisive  is  the 
practical  consideration  that  the  court  is  physically 
powerless  to  enforce  its  decrees  against  the  Chief 
Magistrate,  by  whom  alone  in  the  last  resort  the 


56  JOHN   MARSHALL 

decrees  of  the  court  can  be  carried  into  execution. 
The  animosity  toward  Jefferson  which  nearly  led 
Marshall  into  the  political  blunder  of  supporting 
Burr  in  1801  was  the  probable  cause  of  this  single 
mistake  in  his  long  management  of  the  judicial 
power.  Yet  even  though  it  was  an  error,  it  gives  a 
vivid  idea  of  the  bold  spirit  which  was  able  to  make 
a  limited  court  not  only  the  bulwark  of  the  Con 
stitution,  but  the  chief  engine  in  advancing  national 
principles  during  a  long  series  of  years,  when  every 
other  department  was  arrayed  against  it  and  a  hos 
tile  political  party  was  everywhere  predominant. 

To  assert  the  supremacy  of  the  National  Constitu 
tion  over  the  constitutions  and  laws  of  the  States 
was,  however,  only  half  the  battle,  and  was  in  its 
nature  a  defensive  position.  It  was  necessary  not 
only  to  maintain  but  to  advance.  It  was  not 
enough  for  the  Constitution  to  stand  firm;  it  must 
be  made  to  march,  and  this  was  done  by  a  series  of 
great  decisions,  through  which  Marshall  developed 
and  extended  the  constitutional  powers  and  author 
ity,  not  merely  of  his  own  court,  but  of  the  Execu 
tive  and  of  Congress.  In  1805,  in  the  United  States 
against  Fisher,  he  found  in  the  clause  of  the  Con 
stitution  giving  Congress  the  right  to  pass  all  neces 
sary  and  proper  laws  for  carrying  into  execution  the 
powers  vested  in  them  by  the  Constitution,  authority 
for  a  law  making  the  United  States  a  preferred 


JOHN   MARSHALL  57 

creditor.  In  1819,  the  Dartmouth  College  Case,  the 
most  famous  perhaps  of  all  Marshall's  cases,  was 
decided.  In  this  he  gave  to  the  clause  relating  to 
the  impairment  of  contracts,  already  used  as  the 
foundation  of  the  judgment  in  the  case  of  Fletcher 
against  Peck,  a  vigorous  reinforcement  and  exten 
sion.  In  holding  that  a  State  could  not  alter  a 
charter  derived  from  the  British  Crown  in  colonial 
times,  the  Chief  Justice  carried  the  constitutional 
power  in  this  regard  to  an  extreme,  justifiable,  no 
doubt,  but  from  which  a  man  less  bold  would  have 
recoiled. 

In  the  same  year  he  pushed  the  same  doctrine 
home  in  Sturges  against  Crowninshield,  holding  that 
a  State  could  not  pass  an  insolvent  law  releasing 
debts  contracted  before  its  passage. 

In  the  still  greater  case  of  McCullough  against 
Maryland,  also  heard  at  this  time,  he  affirmed  and 
extended  the  national  power  with  one  hand  while 
he  struck  down  the  authority  of  the  State  with  the 
other.  No  man  could  add  much  to  the  argument  in 
which  Hamilton  defended  the  constitutionality  of  a 
National  Bank,  but  Marshall  presented  it  again  in 
a  manner  equal  to  that  of  the  great  Secretary,  and 
which  carried  with  it  an  authority  which  only  the 
court  could  give.  He  held  the  bank  to  be  consti 
tutional  under  "  the  necessary  laws  "  clause,  and  in 
one  of  those  compact,  nervous  sentences,  so  charac- 


58  JOHN   MARSHALL 

teristic  of  the  man,  he  defined  once  for  all  the  scope 
of  that  provision.  "  Let  this  end  be  legitimate,"  he 
said,  "  let  it  be  within  the  scope  of  the  Constitution, 
and  all  means  which  are  appropriate,  which  are 
plainly  adapted  «to  that  end,  which  are  not  pro 
hibited,  but  consist  with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the 
Constitution,  are  constitutional."  What  an  en 
largement  of  national  power  is  contained  in  these 
pregnant  words !  What  a  weapon  did  this  single 
weighty  sentence  place  in  the  national  armory ! 
The  constitutionality  of  the  bank  being  thus  af 
firmed,  the  law  of  Maryland  taxing  its  branches 
fell,  of  course,  as  null  and  void,  for  the  power  to  tax 
is  the  power  to  destroy. 

That  profound  legal  thinker,  Andrew  Jackson, 
differed  from  Marshall  on  this  question.  He 
wrecked  the  bank  of  the  United  States,  fostered  the 
pet  State  banks,  and  left  the  panic  of  1837  to  deso 
late  business,  and  overwhelm  his  successor  and  his 
party  in  defeat.  But  although  Jackson  tore  down 
the  superstructure,  upon  the  foundation  laid  by  Mar 
shall  in  an  opinion,  where  the  foresight  of  the  states 
man  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  matchless  reasoning 
of  the  lawyer,  arose  the  national  bank  system,  which, 
after  forty  years,  still  stands  before  us  unshaken 
and  secure. 

Two  years  after  the  Maryland  case,  in  Cohens 
against  Virginia,  he  held  that  the  appellate  jurisdic- 


JOHN   MARSHALL  59 

tion  of  the  Supreme  Court  extended  to  decisions  of 
the  highest  State  courts,  and  that  a  State  itself  could 
be  brought  into  court  when  the  validity  of  the  State 
law  under  the  National  Constitution  was  involved. 

In  1824,  in  Gibbons  against  Ogden,  he  interpreted 
and  breathed  life  into  the  clause  giving  Congress 
power  to  regulate  commerce,  and  held  unconstitu 
tional  a  law  of  the  State  of  New  York  which  was  in 
conflict  with  that  clause.  In  so  doing  he  overruled 
some  of  the  ablest  judges  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
and  cut  off  a  right  hitherto  supposed  to  be  un 
questioned.  But  he  did  not  hesitate,  and  another 
extension  of  the  national  power  followed. 

In  Craig  and  others  against  the  State  of  Missouri, 
under  the  clause  forbidding  a  State  to  emit  bills  of 
credit,  he  annulled  a  law  of  that  State  which  author 
ized  the  issue  of  loan  certificates  which  were  held  to 
come  within  the  prohibited  description. 

In  The  Cherokee  Nation  against  Georgia,  he  held 
that  the  Indians  were  not  a  foreign  nation,  and 
therefore  not  entitled  to  sue  in  the  Supreme  Court ; 
and  then,  with  his  wonted  felicity  of  phrase,  he  de 
scribed  them  as  a  "  domestic  and  dependent "  nation 
dwelling  within  the  boundaries  of  the  United  States 
and  subject  only  to  the  laws  and  treaties  of  the 
central  government  —  a  proposition  capable  of  wide 
application,  and  carrying  with  it  possibilities  of  a 
great  extension  of  the  national  authority.  Follow- 


60  JOHN   MARSHALL 

ing  out  this  principle  in  the  case  of  Worcester 
against  Georgia,  he  held  that  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States  going  into  the  Cherokee  country  could  not  be 
held  amenable  to  the  laws  of  Georgia.  The  admin 
istration  was  out  of  sympathy  with  Marshall's 
views,  the  State  of  Georgia  was  openly  defiant,  yet 
after  some  months  of  delay  the  State  gave  way,  the 
missionaries  were  released,  and  the  court  triumphed. 
In  this  list  of  cases,  so  baldly  stated,  many  have 
been  omitted  and  none  has  been  explained  and  ana 
lyzed  as  it  deserves.  But  these  examples,  chosen 
from  among  the  greatest  and  most  familiar,  serve  to 
show  the  course  which  Marshall  pursued  through 
thirty-five  years  of  judicial  life.  These  decisions  are 
more  than  a  monument  of  legal  reasoning,  more  than 
a  masterly  exposition  of  the  Constitution,  for  they 
embody  the  well-considered  policy  of  a  great  states 
man.  They  are  the  work  of  a  man  who  saw  that 
the  future  of  the  United  States  hinged  upon  the  one 
question  whether  the  national  should  prevail  over 
the  separatist  principle,  whether  the  nation  was  to 
be  predominant  over  the  States  —  whether,  indeed, 
there  was  to  be  a  nation  at  all.  Through  all  the 
issues  which  rose  and  fell  during  these  thirty-five 
years,  through  all  the  excitements  of  the  passing 
day,  through  Louisiana  acquisitions  and  the  rela 
tions  with  France  and  England,  through  embar 
goes  and  war  and  Missouri  Compromises,  and  all 


JOHN   MARSHALL  61 

the  bitter  absorbing  passions  which  they  aroused, 
the  Chief  Justice  in  his  court  went  steadily  forward 
dealing  with  that  one  underlying  question  beside 
which  all  others  were  insignificant.  Slowly  but 
surely  he  did  his  work.  -He  made  men  understand 
that  a  tribunal  existed  before  which  States  could  be 
forced  to  plead,  by  which  State  laws  could  be  an 
nulled,  and  which  was  created  by  the  Constitution. 
He  took  the  dry  clauses  of  that  Constitution  and 
breathed  into  them  the  breath  of  life.  Knowing 
well  the  instinct  of  human  nature  to  magnify  its 
own  possessions  —  an  instinct  more  potent  than 
party  feeling  —  he  had  pointed  out  and  developed 
for  Presidents  and  Congresses  the  powers  given 
them  by  the  Constitution  from  which  they  derived 
their  own  existence.  Whether  these  Presidents  and 
Congresses  were  Federalist  or  Democratic,  they  were 
all  human  and  would  be  certain,  therefore,  to  use 
sooner  or  later  the  powers  disclosed  to  them.  That 
which  Hamilton  in  the  bitterness  of  defeat  had 
called  "  a  frail  and  worthless  fabric,"  Marshall  con 
verted  into  a  mighty  instrument  of  government. 
The  Constitution  which  began  as  an  agreement 
between  conflicting  States,  Marshall,  continuing  the 
work  of  Washington  and  Hamilton,  transformed 
into  a  charter  of  national  life.  When  his  own 
life  closed  his  work  was  done  —  a  nation  had  been 
made.  Before  he  died  he  heard  this  great  fact 


62  JOHN   MARSHALL 

declared  with  unrivalled  eloquence  by  Webster,  al 
though  the  attitude  of  the  South  at  that  moment 
filled  him  with  gloomy  apprehensions  and  made  him 
fear  that  the  Constitution  had  failed.1  It  was  re 
served  to  another  generation  to  put  Marshall's  work 
to  the  last  and  awful  test  of  war  and  to  behold  it 
come  forth  from  that  dark  ordeal,  triumphant  and 
supreme. 

What  of  the  man  who  did  all  this  ?  The  states 
man  we  know,  the  great  lawyer,  the  profound  jurist, 
the  original  thinker,  the  unrivalled  reasoner.  All 
this  is  there  in  his  decisions  and  in  his  public  life, 
carved  deep  in  the  history  of  the  times.  But  of  the 
man  himself  we  know  little ;  in  proportion  to  his 
greatness  and  the  part  he  played  we  know  almost 
nothing.  He  was  a  silent  man,  doing  his  great 
work  in  the  world  and  saying  nothing  of  himself, 
to  a  degree  quite  unknown  to  any  of  the  heroes  of 
Carlyle,  who  preached  the  doctrine  of  silence  so 
strenuously  in  many  volumes.  Marshall  seems  to 
have  destroyed  all  his  own  papers;  certainly  none 
of  consequence  are  known  to  exist  now.  He  wrote 
but  few  letters,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  volumi 
nous  collections  of  the  time,  where,  if  we  except 
those  addressed  to  Judge  Story,  lately  published,  he 
is  less  represented  than  any  of  the  other  leaders  of 

1  See  Letters  to  Story,  Proceedings  of  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society  for  October,  1900. 


JOHN  MARSHALL  63 

that  period.  Brief  memoirs  by  some  of  his  contem 
poraries,  scattered  letters,  stray  recollections  and 
fugitive  descriptions,  are  all  that  we  have  to  help 
us  to  see  and  know  the  man  John  Marshall.  Yet 
his  personality  is  so  strong  that  from  these  frag 
ments  and  from  the  study  of  his  public  life  it  stands 
forth  to  all  who  look  with  understanding  and  sym 
pathy.  A  great  intellect ;  a  clear  sight  which  was 
never  dimmed,  but  which  always  recognized  facts 
and  scorned  delusions  ;  a  powerful  will ;  a  courage, 
moral,  mental,  and  physical,  which  nothing  could 
daunt,  —  all  these  things  lie  upon  the  surface. 
Deeper  down  we  discern  a  directness  of  mind,  a  pur 
ity  and  strength  of  character,  a  kind  heart,  an  abund 
ant  humor,  and  a  simplicity  and  modesty  which  move 
our  admiration  as  beyond  the  bounds  of  eulogy. 
He  was  a  very  great  man.  The  proofs  of  his  great 
ness  lie  all  about  us,  in  our  history,  our  law,  our 
constitutional  development,  our  public  thought. 
But  there  is  one  witness  to  his  greatness  of  soul 
which  seems  to  me  to  outweigh  all  the  others.  He 
had  been  soldier  and  lawyer  and  statesman  ;  he  had 
been  an  envoy  to  France,  a  member  of  Congress, 
Secretary  of  State,  and  Chief  Justice.  He  did  a 
great  work,  and  no  one  knew  better  than  he  how 
great  it  had  been.  Then  when  he  came  to  die  he 
wrote  his  own  epitaph,  and  all  he  asked  to  have 
recorded  was  his  name,  the  date  of  his  birth,  the 


64  JOHN  MARSHALL 

date  of  his  marriage,  and  the  date  of  his  death. 
"What  a  noble  pride  and  what  a  fine  simplicity  are 
there  !  In  the  presence  of  such  a  spirit,  at  the  close 
of  such  a  life,  almost  anything  that  can  be  said 
would  seem  tawdry  and  unworthy.  His  devoted 
friend,  Judge  Story,  wished  to  have  inscribed  upon 
Marshall's  tomb  the  words  "  Expounder  of  the  Con 
stitution."  Even  this  is  something  too  much  and 
also  far  too  little.  He  is  one  of  that  small  group  of 
men  who  have  founded  States.  He  is  a  Nation- 
maker,  a  State-builder.  His  monument  is  in  the 
history  of  the  United  States,  and  his  name  is  written 
upon  the  Constitution  of  his  country. 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH1 

IN  this  presence  and  on  an  occasion  like  this 
tradition  and  custom  alike  suggest  that  I  should 
speak  to  you  either  of  the  law,  of  the  part  which 
those  who  follow  that  honored  profession  have  taken 
in  our  history,  or  of  that  which  they  ought  now  to 
take  in  the  life  of  our  time.  Yet,  rash  as  it  may 
seem,  in  addressing  those  whose  studies  have  taught 
them  more  than  any  other  studies  can  teach  the  im 
portance  of  precedents,  I  shall  do  neither.  I  shall 
not  speak  to  you  of  laws  or  constitutions,  but  of  a 
maker  of  both.  I  shall  not  try  to  discourse  to  you 
upon  the  place  which  the  legal  profession  has  filled 
in  the  past,  or  that  which  it  ought  to  fill  in  society 
and  politics  to-day,  but  I  shall  ask  your  attention  to 
what  one  lawyer  achieved  during  a  most  momentous 
period  of  our  history.  I  shall  not,  as  the  common 
phrase  has  it,  descend  from  the  general  to  the  par 
ticular,  but  I  shall  advance  from  the  boundless 
region  of  abstract  principles  to  the  sharply  defined 
facts  of  a  great  example.  I  propose  to  speak  to  you 
of  a  man  who  in  his  time  played  many  parts,  who 

1  An  address  delivered  at  New  Haven  before  the  graduating  class 
of  the  Law  School  of  Yale  University,  June  23,  1902. 

5 


66  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

was  a  State  judge,  and  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States,  a  framer  of  the  Constitution,  a  maker  of 
laws  when  the  Federal  Statute  Book  offered  a  blank 
page,  a  statesman,  a  Senator,  a  diplomatist.  Here, 
indeed,  is  an  impressive  list  of  public  positions  of 
the  highest  rank ;  but  public  office  is,  after  all,  only 
an  opportunity,  and  there  is  many  a  case  where  all 
has  been  said  of  the  holder  when  the  places  he  held 
have  been  duly  catalogued.  That  which  concerns 
posterity  is  what  the  man  did  with  his  opportunity, 
what  he  meant  to  his  own  generation,  what  he 
means  to  us. 

To  me,  Oliver  Ellsworth,  who  filled  the  spacious 
places  and  met  the  large  opportunities  which  I  have 
enumerated,  has  come  to  mean  a  good  deal.  His 
torians,  students,  and  lawyers  know  Oliver  Ells 
worth,  not  intimately  perhaps,  but  still  they  have  an 
acquaintance  .with  him  sufficient  to  give  a  certain 
reality  to  his  name.  Yet  my  own  recent  inquiries 
have  led  me  to  fear  that  to  most  of  us  he  is  little 
more  than  a  name,  that  he  has  dropped  most  unde 
servedly  into  that  interesting  but  rather  pathetic 
group  of  historic  figures  to  whom  Froude  gave  the 
melancholy  title  of  "  Forgotten  Worthies."  He  has 
richly  merited  a  better  fate,  and  should  find  a  biog 
rapher  with  room  and  verge  enough  to  do  him  full 
justice.  But  while  we  await  the  biographer,  if  we 
cannot  build  a  fitting  monument,  we  can  at  least  add 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  67 

something  to  the  cairn  which  history  in  its  progress 
has  already  gathered  to  preserve  his  memory. 

Let  us  try  first  to  place  him  aright.  He  was  not 
one  of  the  greatest  leaders  of  an  extraordinary  period. 
He  cannot  stand  with  the  man  who  was  dominant  in 
that  period  alike  in  peace  and  war,  our  first  President. 
He  had  not  the  creative  power  and  fiery  force  of 
Hamilton  nor  the  profound  originality  and  sweeping 
conceptions  of  John  Marshall.  But  he  was  one  of 
that  remarkable  body  of  men  who  gathered  round 
these  leaders  of  war,  statecraft,  and  politics,  and 
without  whom  the  leaders  could  not  have  succeeded. 
Oliver  Ellsworth  was  a  fine  example  of  a  fine  type. 
The  contribution  to  human  history  at  that  time  and 
in  this  country,  made  by  the  men  whom  he  exem 
plified,  was  expressed  in  the  campaigns  and  govern 
ment  of  Washington,  in  the  policies  and  organizations 
of  Hamilton,  and  in  the  decisions  of  Marshall.  It 
consists  of  the  American  Revolution  and  the  forma 
tion  of  the  United  States.  Follow  our  own  history 
from  that  day  to  this,  consider  what  the  United  States 
is  to  the  world  at  the  present  time,  and  you  can  see 
how  momentous  and  how  far  reaching  was  the  work 
of  those  men  who  tore  one  empire  asunder  and  then 
laid  firm  and  deep  the  foundations  of  another.  If 
you  seek  their  monument,  "Survey  mankind  from 
China  to  Peru,"  and  when  your  eyes  rest  at  last  upon 
the  United  States  you  will  have  found  it. 


68  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

All  actors,  great  and  small  alike,  in  the  decisive 
crises  of  history,  when  the  world  turns  in  her  sleep 
with  pain  and  wakes  to  give  birth,  after  much  sore 
travail,  to  vast  changes  in  the  relations  of  men  and 
in  the  movements  of  society,  have  a  deep  meaning. 
Every  man,  for  example,  who  stands  out  in  relief 
against  the  red  light  of  the  French  Terror  has  an 
absorbing  interest,  which  no  effort  of  fiction  can 
obtain,  and  which  holds  us  captive  as  we  watch  him 
race  through  a  few  months  of  furious  life  to  sudden 
death  and  an  immortality  of  fame  or  infamy.  So 
it  is  with  the  men  who  made  our  revolution,  and 
then  among  the  ruins  of  the  old  system  built  a  new 
and  better  one ;  it  is  important  to  know  and  under 
stand  each  and  all  of  them.  This  is  most  true  in 
this  instance,  for  when  we  turn  to  Oliver  Ellsworth 
we  meet  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  makers 
and  builders  engaged  in  that  mighty  work. 

Who  and  what  was  he?  He  was  of  English  stock, 
third  in  descent  from  the  ancestor  who  had  come 
over  to  America  before  the  first  great  Puritan  migra 
tion  had  ceased  on  the  assembling  of  the  Long  Parlia 
ment.  His  name  is  Saxon,  derived  from  that  of  a 
Saxon  village  in  Cambridgeshire.  There  is  the  story 
of  his  blood  and  race,  —  Saxon,  English,  Puritan, 
three  words  full  of  meaning.  They  bring  before  us 
the  wild  bands  bearing  down  on  Britain  from  the  Ger 
man  forests,  the  slow  welding  of  tribes  and  races  into 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  69 

the  people  henceforth  to  be  known  as  English ;  they 
recall  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  for  conscience'  sake 
mingling  with  that  older  spirit  of  adventure,  which 
in  the  dim  past  had  driven  the  long  boats  of  the 
Norseman,  Dane,  and  Saxon  across  the  North  Sea, 
and  which  reviving  in  Elizabeth's  men  made 
prize  of  the  American  wilderness.  It  was  a  strong 
race,  a  sturdy  stock  to  spring  from;  and  these 
Ellsworths,  complete  exemplars  of  it,  settled  in 
Connecticut,  flourished  and  increased,  and  there,  in 
the  town  of  Windsor  on  April  29,  1745,  was 
born  to  David  Ellsworth  and  Jemima  Leavitt,  his 
wife,  a  son  whom  they  named  Oliver.  The  father 
was  a  farmer,  his  family  neither  rich  nor  poor, 
simple  in  their  lives,  frugal  in  their  habits,  religious, 
hard-working,  in  all  their  ways  typifying  the  thou 
sands  of  households  who  then  made  up  what  was 
known  as  New  England.  Under  such  influences 
and  surroundings  Oliver  Ellsworth  grew  up.  The 
conditions  were  not  easy,  the  outlook  on  life  was 
limited  in  many  directions,  —  was  sometimes  hard, 
sometimes  narrow.  But  such  conditions  at  least 
bred  strong  men  and  not  weaklings ;  they  developed 
virtues  with  the  vigor  of  the  open  air  about  them, 
and  not  the  pallor  of  the  cloister;  they  endowed 
those  who  felt  their  discipline  with  the  qualities  for 
strife  and  endurance  by  which  nations  are  freed  and 
states  founded  and  governed. 


70  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

Among  the  marked  characteristics  of  this  race 
transplanted  from  the  pruned  and  ordered  garden  of 
England  to  the  rough  wilderness  of  the  new  world 
was  a  deep  reverence  for  learning.  The  ruling 
ambition  among  all  families,  strongest  perhaps  in 
the  poorest,  was  that  the  eldest  son  at  least  should 
go  to  college  and  be  thereafte-r  lawyer,  minister,  or 
judge.  So  from  the  farm  life  and  the  town  school 
at  Windsor  Oliver  Ellsworth  made  his  way  to  Yale, 
as  was  most  natural,  and  thence  after  two  years  for 
some  unexplained  reason1  to  Princeton,  where  he 
graduated  with  credit. 

College  course  finished,  he  returned  to  Windsor, 
studied  law,  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  was  given  a 
small  farm  by  his  father,  and  upon  that  eked  out  by 
some  trifling  legal  fees  lived  along  in  a  thrifty,  highly 
economical  fashion,  which  it  is  said  clung  to  him 
through  life,  and  with  no  very  brilliant  prospects  im 
mediately  apparent.  Then  one  day  in  the  Hartford 
Court  the  opportunity  flies  open,  the  native  capacity 
suddenly  becomes  obvious  to  the  vicinage,  and  after 
that  the  advance  is  steady  and  rapid.  So  rapid  in 
deed  is  his  rise  that  by  the  time  he  had  passed  thirty 
he  was  in  the  front  rank  and  master  of  a  practice 

1  Since  this  address  was  delivered  I  have  learned  that  the  "  reason  " 
was  the  college  bell  turned  upside  down  one  winter  night  and  filled 
with  water,  which  thereupon  froze.  The  results  were  temporary  silence 
on  the  part  of  the  bell  and  the  subsequent  departure  of  young  Ells 
worth  to  the  New  Jersey  college. 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  71 

considered  one  of  the  best  in  Connecticut.  But  while 
Ellsworth  was  thus  moving  forward  the  political 
forces  which  were  to  dominate  the  closing  years  of 
the  century  were  moving  too.  As  a  boy  he  had 
witnessed  the  opposition  to  the  Stamp  Act  and  the 
rejoicing  at  its  repeal.  When  he  grew  to  manhood 
it  looked  at  first  as  if  all  was  to  be  peaceful  as  of 
yore,  and  then  the  low  mutterings  of  a  storm  were 
heard  ;  the  apparent  peace,  it  seemed,  was  only  a  truce, 
and  the  clouds  began  to  gather  more  darkly  than  be 
fore.  He  was  still  in  the  first  flush  of  his  young  success 
when  news  came  that  Boston  harbor  was  black  with 
tea,  and  hard  upon  that  strange  defiance  followed  the 
Boston  Port  Bill  driving  the  colonies  into  the  union 
which  was  more  perilous  to  England  than  all  else. 
So  the  American  Revolution  inarched  forward,  and 
Ellsworth  went  with  it.  No  doubts,  no  hesitations, 
seemingly  a  matter  of  course  with  him  that  he  should 
be  with  his  country  in  resistance  to  a  British  policy 
which  meant  a  hopeless  dependence  and  submission, 
which  would  render  the  colonies  lifeless  provinces 
when  the  aspirations  of  empire  and  the  hope  of  a 
great  future  were  stirring  unconsciously  but  strongly 
in  their  hearts.  The  young  lawyer  thus  drawn 
into  the  vortex  of  the  great  movement  served  in  the 
militia,  and  took  part  in  the  labors  of  the  General  As 
sembly  of  which  he  had  for  some  years  been  a  mem 
ber.  His  ability  and  energy  thus  displayed  in  the 


72  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

work  of  the  State  carried  him  speedily  to  a  larger 
field.  In  1777  he  was  chosen  a  delegate  in  Con 
gress,  and  took  his  seat  in  that  body  the  following 
year. 

The  decline  of  the  Continental  Congress  in  power, 
character,  and  influence,  as  compared  with  its  re 
markable  strength  and  ability  in  the  first  session, 
had  already  set  in,  but  had  not  yet  proceeded  very 
far.  Ellsworth  found  among  his  associates  his  col 
league  Koger  Sherman,  Samuel  Adams,  Robert  and 
Gouverneur  Morris,  Witherspoon,  Eichard  Henry  Lee, 
-Laurens,  and  later  John  Jay,  and  he  was  entirely  fit 
to  hold  high  place  among  men  of  this  quality.  He 
was  active,  efficient,  with  large  capacity  sorely 
needed  just  then  for  the  work  of  administration, 
and  he  was  placed  at  once  on  committees  charged 
with  the  heaviest  responsibilities.  His  most  impor 
tant  service,  however,  was  as  a  member  of  the  Com 
mittee  C'L  Appeals,  whose  functions  were  judicial  and 
whose  ility  it  was  to  hear  appeals  from  the  local 
Admiralty  courts.  This  Committee  was  the  first  im 
perfect  beginning  of  the  Federal  judicial  system  from 
which  in  process  of  time  was  to  come  the  great  or 
ganization  and  wide  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States 
Courts.  It  was  one  of  the  many  examples  of  the 
efforts  of  Congress  with  no  proper  machinery  and  no 
adequate  powers  to  supply  the  absolute  necessities  of 
a  central  government  ;  it  was  one  of  many  stumbling 


OLIVER   ELLSWORTH  73 

steps  toward  the  making  of  a  nation,  and  these 
abortive  attempts  were  the  hard  school  in  which  the 
men  who  met  later  at  Philadelphia  in  1787  gained 
the  wisdom  and  experience  which  resulted  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Thus  Washing 
ton  learned  in  the  field,  through  many  bitter  years  of 
trial  and  disappointment  caused  by  the  utter  failure 
of  Congress  as  a  war-making,  money-raising  body, 
that  the  one  thing  necessary  for  America  was  a  bet 
ter  union  and  a  well-organized  national  government, 
—  high  objects  to  which  he  was  to  devote  heart  and 
mind  and  strength  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life. 
By  Congress,  Hamilton  was  taught  that  no  financial 
soundness  or  success  was  possible  without  a  complete 
change  in  the  methods  of  the  confederate  system  and 
the  formation  of  a  strong  central  government.  And 
in  Congress  likewise  on  this  Committee  of  Appeals 
Ellsworth  learned  the  imperative  need  of  a  Federal 
Judiciary  and  the  utter  helplessness  of  the  Continen 
tal  Congress  to  do  justice  or  to  carry  out  its  de 
crees  so  painfully  illustrated  by  the  cause  which 
later  became  famous  as  the  Olmstead  case.  There 
in  the  dark  confusion  of  revolutionary  war,  in  that 
Committee  of  Appeals  so  ample  in  high  ability,  so  im 
potent  in  powers  of  execution,  were  conceived  the 
thoughts  which  one  day  would  give  birth  to  the  judi 
cial  system  of  the  United  States. 

Many  were  the  services  which  Ellsworth  performed 


74  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

in  Congress  only  to  be  detected  by  a  careful  exam 
ination  of  parliamentary  journals,  very  cold  and 
lifeless  now,  but  none  the  less  recording,  in  dry  and 
formal  words,  deeds,  efforts,  and  failures  to  which 
living  men  gave  their  hearts  and  brains  and  over 
which  human  passions  once  burned  brightly  enough. 
But  Ellsworth's  greatest,  most  patriotic  service  was 
that  he  remained  in  Congress  working  as  best  he 
could  for  the  common  cause  until  the  end,  —  until 
1782,  when  the  great  stress  was  over  and  the 
country  was  passing  out  of  the  trials  of  war  to 
prepare  for  the  equally  hard  trials  of  peace.  This 
was  no  light  task  and  no  trifling  sacrifice.  The 
first  Congresses  had  numbered  in  their  membership 
all  that  was  best  and  strongest  in  America.  They 
set  forth  to  the  world  in  a  series  of  state  papers  of 
unrivalled  ability  the  arguments  and  the  position 
of  the  revolting  colonies,  and  the  eyes  of  mankind 
were  fixed  upon  them.  They  made  the  Revolution 
and  they  declared  independence.  Then  the  decline 
set  in.  The  greatest  man  of  all  left  Congress  to 
command  the  army,  and  others  followed  him  to  the 
field.  Franklin  crossed  the  waters  to  seek  the  aid 
of  Europe  for  the  fighting  colonies,  and  others  fol 
lowed  him  on  the  same  momentous  errand.  Still 
others  of  the  delegates  left  the  central  government 
for  service  in  their  States,  where  under  the  changing 
pressure  of  war  they  seemed  to  be  most  needed. 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  75 

Thus  the  high  ability  of  Congress  was  lowered,  and 
then  the  vices  of  the  system  became  more  and  more 
apparent.  Congress  was  a  legislative  body  striving  to 
perform  executive  functions,  —  a  plan  always  doomed 
to  failure,  and  in  this  case  impossible  because  Con 
gress  had  no  real  power  and  could  only  make  appeals 
to  jarring  and  indifferent  States.  As  Congress  sank 
into  weakness  and  contempt,  jobbery  raised  its  ugly 
head,  intrigue  invaded  it,  and  smaller  men  took  the 
places  of  the  great  leaders  who  had  made  the  body 
famous.  Men  of  the  right  sort  shrank  from  it,  and 
so  decrepit  did  it  become  that  toward  the  end  it 
seemed  little  more  than  an  additional  obstacle  for 
Washington  to  overcome.  Very  especial  gratitude 
and  honor  are  due,  therefore,  to  the  few  men  of  the 
first  rank,  like  Ellsworth,  who  clung  to  it  to  the  end, 
extorted  from  it  the  creation  of  certain  rude  execu 
tive  departments,  and  forced  it  to  the  point  of  not 
altogether  abandoning  Washington  and  the  army. 
It  was  hard  and  thankless  work,  not  shining  bril 
liantly  before  the  eyes  of  men,  but  all  the  more  to  be 
honored  because  done  in  obscurity,  in  the  midst 
of  distrust  and  contempt,  and  without  hope  either  of 
present  applause  or  of  future  reward. 

As  the  war  closed,  Congress  began  to  show  signs 
of  a  revival  in  ability  with  the  appearance  of  Hamil 
ton  and  Madison  and  other  men  of  a  younger  gen 
eration,  forerunners  of  the  constructive  era  which 


76  OLIVER   ELLSWORTH 

was  fast  approaching.  With  these  men  Ellsworth 
engaged  in  more  welcome  service  than  in  the  dark 
years  which  had  gone.  But  the  war  was  over.  He 
had  done  his  share  and  more,  and  in  the  summer  of 
1783  he  returned  to  Connecticut,  there  to  begin  his 
judicial  career  as  a  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Errors,  which  was  really  the  upper  branch  of  the 
legislature,  and  afterwards  as  a  Judge  of  the  Su 
preme  Court.  Four  years  of  good  work  passed  with 
much  advantage  to  the  law  of  the  State,  where  the 
decisions  were  just  beginning  to  be  reported  and 
preserved,  and  then  the  current  of  the  larger  life 
caught  him  again  and  swept  him  out  once  more 
from  the  quiet  haven  of  the  local  bench  into  the 
broad  rough  ocean  of  national  politics. 

The  confederation  so  carefully  labored  over  by  the 
revolutionary  Congress  had  been  languidly  accepted 
by  the  States  and  had  come  into  a  rickety  existence 
only  to  prove  that  it  could  not  survive.  The  States 
were  drawing  apart  from  each  other  and  were  torn 
by  internal  dissensions.  The  outlook  was  black,  and 
the  men  everywhere  who  thought  "  continentally," 
saw  that  desperate  remedies  were  imperative  and 
took  counsel  together.  The  result  was  the  Con 
vention  which  met  at  Philadelphia  in  the  summer 
of  1787.  Connecticut  was  slow  to  move  in  the  new 
direction,  but  when  she  did  so  at  the  last  moment 
it  was  to  send  Roger  Sherman,  Oliver  Ellsworth, 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  77 

and  William  Samuel   Johnson  to   represent   her  in 
the  final  effort  for  a  better  union. 

We  have  now  come  to  one  of  the  three  great 
events  in  Ellsworth's  life,  —  to  an  act  which  fastens 
his  name  in  history  and  without  which  the  story  of 
that  eventful  summer  cannot  be  told.  To  trace 
through  the  records  of  the  Convention  all  that  he 
said  and  did  in  the  formation  of  the  Constitution 
would  be  impossible  and  for  my  purpose  needless, 
because  before  us  there  is  now  a  single  achievement 
which  rises  out  of  the  current  of  events  as  distinctly 
as  a  lofty  tower  on  a  lonely  ledge,  and  as  luminous 
as  the  light  which  beams  forth  from  it  over  the  dark 
waste  of  ocean.  There  were  many  anxious  moments 
in  that  Convention,  but  none  so  anxious,  none  when 
the  danger  of  failure  and  dissolution  appeared  so 
imminent,  as  in  the  contest  over  the  basis  of  repre 
sentation.  The  representatives  of  the  larger  States, 
the  men  who  had  thought  "  continentally  "  and  had 
brought  about  the  Convention,  like  Hamilton,  Madi 
son,  Franklin,  King,  Wilson,  and  Gouverneur  Morris, 
believed  that  the  only  solution  was  to  frame  a 
government  for  men  and  not  for  imaginary  political 
entities  called  States.  The  jealousies  and  the  quarrels 
of  the  old  Congress  with  their  resulting  impotence 
and  confusion  had  filled  many  of  the  leading  minds 
with  the  belief  that  no  government  where  the  States 
as  such  had  power  could  ever  hope  for  success. 


78  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

They  wanted  a  government  based  on  population  and 
resting  solely  and  directly  upon  the  people  of  the 
entire  nation.  To  this  the  small  States,  strong  with 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  were  bitterly  opposed. 
Upon  Connecticut,  strange  as  it  may  seem  in  view 
of  her  fate  as  the  last  and  surest  stronghold  of  the 
extreme  Federalist  doctrines,  the  brunt  of  the  battle 
in  behalf  of  the  small  States  fell.  In  this  struggle 
Ellsworth  and  his  eminent  colleague,  Roger  Sherman, 
who  more  than  ten  years  before  had  developed  the 
principle  of  State  representation,  were  the  leaders. 
They  both  came  to  the  Convention,  therefore,  im 
bued  with  the  idea  of  resisting  the  over-strong  cen 
tralizing  tendency  in  which  they  saw  at  that  moment 
great  peril.  At  the  very  outset  Ellsworth  moved  to 
strike  from  one  of  the  preliminary  resolutions  the 
word  "  national "  and  insert  as  a  proper  title  "  the 
United  States."  He  declared  a  little  later,  with  equal 
terseness  and  force,  that  "  the  only  chance  of  support 
ing  a  general  government  lies  in  grafting  it  on  those 
of  the  original  States ; "  thus  laying  down  a  principle 
long  advocated  by  Sherman,  which  was  as  profound 
in  its  apprehension  of  the  conditions  as  it  was  sound 
in  its  application  to  the  problems  of  the  moment. 
It  was  on  this  doctrine  that  he  made  his  stand  when 
the  crucial  question  of  representation  confronted  the 
Convention.  Reluctantly  yielding  to  the  principle 
of  representation  according  to  population  for  the 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  79 

lower  House,  he  stood  out  immovably  for  the  equal 
ity  of  the  States  in  the  Senate.  In  company  with 
Roger  Sherman,  who  was  the  leader  in  the  conflict, 
with  Patterson  of  New  Jersey,  and  Bedford  of  Dela 
ware,  he  fought  through  the  debate  against  such 
brilliant  leaders  as  Hamilton  and  Madison,  Ran 
dolph  and  Pinckney,  Rufus  King,  James  Wilson,  and 
Gouverneur  Morris.  When  the  test  came  Georgia 
split  her  vote  and  the  other  States  divided  equally. 
The  first  thought  was  that  the  Convention  had  failed, 
that  the  hope  of  union  had  vanished.  But  out  of 
that  equally  divided  vote  came  a  Committee  of  Con 
ference,  and  out  of  that  conference  came  the  great 
compromise,  —  representation  according  to  popula 
tion  in  the  House,  equality  of  the  States  in  the 
Senate.1 

To  show  that  I  have  not  exaggerated  Ellsworth's 
part  in  this  momentous  contest,  let  me  cite  two  high 
authorities.  Mr.  Bancroft  says  :  "  There  he  more 
than  any  other  shaped  the  policy  which  alone  could 
have  reconciled  the  great  States  and  the  small  ones 

1  In  the  appendix  is  given  a  letter  from  my  colleague  the  Hon. 
George  F.  Hoar  which  discusses  fully  and  in  the  most  interesting  and 
conclusive  manner  the  respective  shares  of  Sherman  and  Ellsworth 
in  originating  and  carrying  through  the  great  compromise  of  the 
Constitution  which  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  State  representa 
tion  in  the  Senate.  I  desire  to  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing 
my  obligations  to  Senator  Hoar  for  the  advice  and  assistance  which 
he  so  constantly  and  so  generously  gave  me  in  preparing  this  address, 
as  well  as  for  his  kindness  in  allowing  me  to  publish  his  letter. 


80  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

and  bound  them  both  equally  to  the  Union  by  recip 
rocal  concessions.  He  too  it  was  who  joined  with 
Sherman  and  successfully  intreated  that  body  to  bar 
and  bolt  the  doors  of  the  United  States  against  paper 
money."  1 

Mr.  Calhoun  said  in  the  Senate :  "  It  is  owing  — 
I  speak  it  here  in  honor  of  New  England  and  the 
Northern  States  —  it  is  owing  mainly  to  the  States 
of  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey  that  we  have  a 
federal  instead  of  a  national  government ;  that  we 
have  the  best  government  instead  of  the  most 
despotic  and  intolerable  on  the  earth.  Who  were 
the  men  of  those  States  to  whom  we  are  indebted 
for  this  admirable  government  ?  I  will  name  them. 
They  were  Chief  Justice  Ellsworth,  Roger  Sherman, 
and  Judge  Patterson  of  New  Jersey.  The  other 
States  further  south  were  blind ;  they  did  not  see 
the  future.  But  to  the  sagacity  and  coolness  of 
those  three  men,  aided  by  a  few  others,  but  not  so 
prominent,  we  owe  the  present  Constitution."  2 

Now  exactly  what  was  it  that  Ellsworth  and 
Sherman  did  ?  They  won  their  victory  for  equality 
of  State  representation  in  one  branch  of  Congress, 
but  they  did  far  more  even  than  this,  for  they  and 
the  few  who  stood  with  them  saved  the  Constitu 
tion  itself  and  made  it  possible.  Without  that  com- 

1  Century  Magazine,  July,  1883,  p.  483. 
8  Chicago  Law  Times,  vol.  ii.  p.  112. 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  81 

promise  there  would  either  have  been  no  Constitution 
or  the  Constitution  made  without  State  representation 
would  have  gone  to  pieces  in  the  early  years  at  the 
first  moment  when  the  large  States  asserted  their 
untrammelled  control  of  the  national  government. 
All  this  is  very  plain  to  us  now,  but  it  is  also  very 
clear  that  enormous  importance  was  attached  at  the 
moment  to  the  construction  of  the  upper  House,  for 
the  equality  of  the  States  in  the  Senate  was  the  one 
provision  of  the  Constitution  which  the  framers 
declared  could  not  be  changed  without  the  consent 
of  every  State.  They  showed  in  this  way  their 
belief  that  in  the  combination  of  representation  of 
population  with  representation  by  States  the  very 
existence  of  the  Constitution  was  involved.  In 
pursuance  of  this  fundamental  theory  they  also 
provided  that  Senators  should  be  elected  not  by 
direct  popular  vote  but  by  the  men  chosen  by  the 
people  who  in  the  legislature  constituted  the  State 
government,  and  embodied  the  State  as  a  political 
entity.  Just  now  there  is  a  movement  on  foot  to 
bring  about  the  election  of  Senators  by  direct  popu 
lar  vote.  If  successful,  it  will  inevitably  be  followed 
by  proportional  representation  in  the  Senate,  and  the 
most  radical  revolution  conceivable  will  take  place 
in  our  form  of  government.  We  alone  among  the 
nations  possessing  representative  government  have 
fully  solved  the  problem  of  an  upper  House  resting 

6 


82  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

upon  an  independent  basis  and  effective  in  legisla 
tion.  If  the  Senate  is  placed  upon  the  same  basis 
as  the  House  and  is  chosen  in  the  same  way  by  the 
same  constituency,  its  character  and  meaning  depart, 
the  States  will  be  hopelessly  weakened,  the  balance 
of  the  Constitution  will  be  destroyed,  centralization 
will  advance  with  giant  strides,  and  we  shall  enter 
upon  a  period  of  constitutional  revolution  of  which 
the  end  cannot  be  foretold.  When  we  contemplate 
what  the  equality  of  the  States  in  the  Senate  meant 
at  the  time  of  the  Philadelphia  Convention,  what  it 
has  meant  throughout  our  national  life,  and  what  its 
overthrow  would  mean  to-day,  we  realize  the  great 
service  of  Sherman  and  Ellsworth,  and  how  large 
and  enduring  a  place  they  must  always  hold  in  our 
history. 

Upon  Ellsworth's  influence  in  forming  other  parts 
of  the  Constitution  I  need  not  dwell.  It  is  enough 
here  to  have  shown  his  large  share  in  the  establish 
ment  of  the  vital  principle  of  the  Constitution.  An 
adverse  fate  compelled  him  to  leave  the  Convention 
before  its  adjournment  and  deprived  him  of  the 
satisfaction  of  signing  his  name  to  the  great  instru 
ment.  But  as  he  came  into  the  Convention  the 
champion  of  the  rights  of  the  States  which  seemed 
at  the  moment  the  most  serious  obstacle  to  a  better 
union,  he  passed  out  of  the  Convention  where  he 
had  won  his  great  victory  to  become  the  champion 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  83 

of  the  Constitution  and  to  give  the  rest  of  his  life  to 
the  development  and  enlargement  of  its  powers  and 
to  the  upbuilding  of  a  strong  national  government. 
His  first  service  to  the  cause  was  in  the  Convention 
of  Connecticut  called  to  ratify  the  new  Constitution. 
He  led  the  party  of  ratification,  which  fortunately 
had  a  large  majority  and  carried  without  difficulty 
the  adhesion  of  Connecticut  to  the  new  plan. 
There  is  no  better  proof  of  the  quality  and  effective 
ness  of  his  speeches  at  that  time  than  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Webster  quoted  from  them  in  February,  1833, 
when  replying  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  saying,  as  he  did 
so :  "I  cannot  do  better  than  to  leave  this  part  of 
this  subject  by  reading  the  remarks  upon  it  in  the 
Convention  of  Connecticut  by  Mr.  Ellsworth,  a 
gentleman,  Sir,  who  has  left  behind  him  on  the 
records  of  the  government  of  his  country  proofs  of 
the  clearest  intelligence  and  of  the  deepest  sagacity, 
as  well  as  of  the  utmost  purity  and  integrity  of 
character." 

When  the  necessary  number  of  States  had  ratified 
the  Constitution  and  the  new  government  was  ready 
to  start,  Connecticut  sent,  as  one  of  her  first  repre 
sentatives  in  the  Senate,  the  man  to  whom  that  body 
largely  owed  its  existence.  Ellsworth  was  one  of 
the  eight  Senators  who  appeared  in  New  York  on 
the  4th  of  March,  1789.  There  he  waited  patiently 
for  six  weeks  until  the  quorum  of  Congress  had 


84  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

gathered,  there  he  took  part  in  the  inauguration  of 
Washington,  and  there  he  began  a  service  as  Senator 
which  was  to  last  for  seven  years. 

Once  more  time  and  space  forbid  me  to  trace  in 
detail  the  career  which  makes  Ellsworth  one  of  the 
great  names  in  the  history  of  the  Senate.  In  all 
that  came  before  the  Senate  in  those  formative 
years,  he  took  a  leading  part,  and  it  is  not  easy  to 
conceive,  in  this  day  so  rich  in  traditions  and  prec 
edents,  the  absolute  vacancy  which  confronted  the 
first  Senators  when  they  assembled  in  New  York  in  the 
spring  of  1789.  There  were  no  laws,  no  rules,  no  forms, 
no  customs,  no  practice,  no  government,  nothing  but 
the  clauses  of  a  freshly  drawn,  uninterpreted,  untried 
Constitution.  All  was  to  do.  Even  the  enacting 
clauses  of  bills  had  to  be  formulated  by  somebody, 
the  somebody  chanced  to  be  Ellsworth,  and  the 
manner  in  which  the  President  and  other  officers  of 
the  government  were  to  be  addressed  was  only  set 
tled  after  long  debate.  In  those  momentous  years 
the  great  measures  and  the  far-reaching  policies 
which  founded  the  nation  and  organized  the  country 
stand  out  on  the  pages  of  history  for  all  men  to  see 
and  admire.  But  the  countless  little  measures  and 
decisions  of  the  passing  day  by  which  the  firm  mass  of 
habits,  customs,  and  traditions,  often  more  powerful  in 
holding  the  respect  of  men,  and  guarding  a  country 
from  revolution  than  many  great  measures  of  state, 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  85 

were  then  founded  deep  arid  strong.  In  both  fields 
Ellsworth  was  a  leader.  His  was  one  of  the  guiding 
minds  in  devising  the  delicate  machinery,  the  small 
wheels  and  nicely  adjusted  mechanism  upon  which, 
although  hidden  from  sight,  all  government  moves. 
And  he  also  stands  out  conspicuous  as  one  of  the 
chief  constructive  legislators  of  a  great  period  of 
construction,  for  it  was  he  who  drafted  the  Judiciary 
Act,  upon  which  the  judicial  system  of  the  United 
States  has  rested  ever  since,  and  to  which  all  subse 
quent  legislation  for  the  judiciary  has  been  but 
extension  and  amendment.  This  was  his  second 
service  to  his  country,  so  large  in  its  scope  as  to 
give  him  a  lasting  place  in  our  legislative  history, 
even  as  the  equality  of  the  States  in  the  Senate  is 
his  enduring  monument  in  the  history  of  our  Con 
stitution.  Outside  the  Senate  chamber  too,  as  well 
as  within,  he  fully  performed  those  duties  which  he 
conceived  the  Constitution  imposed  upon  the  Sena 
tors  as  the  only  constitutional  advisers  of  the  Execu 
tive.  He  was  no  stranger  to  the  President.  His 
services  in  the  Continental  Congress  and  in  the 
Convention  had  made  him  known  to  Washington,  to 
whom  Ellsworth's  high  qualities  of  mind  and  char 
acter  strongly  appealed.  When  the  President  made 
his  tour  of  New  England  at  the  beginning  of  his 
administration,  he  stopped  at  Ellsworth's  house,  and 
we  get  a  very  human,  very  illuminating  glimpse  of 


86  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

him  there  playing  with  the  children  of  the  Senator 
and  singing  a  song  to  them.  Through  all  the  period 
of  Ellsworth's  service  in  the  Senate  he  was  one  of 
the  chosen  group  of  men  upon  whom  Washington 
leaned,  whose  advice  he  sought,  and  whose  sugges 
tions  were  always  welcome.  A  simple  incident 
connected  with  one  of  the  gravest  questions  of 
the  time,  and  related  by  one  of  Ellsworth's  grand 
sons,  will  show  at  once  his  grasp  of  our  foreign 
policy,  and  the  part  he  played  in  the  administration 
of  Washington  : 

"In  January,  1794,  a  majority  of  the  House  of 
Kepresentatives  was  prepared  to  declare  war  with 
Great  Britain  notwithstanding  the  defenceless  state 
of  the  country.  Mr.  Ellsworth,  though  not  in  the 
Cabinet,  was  in  the  confidence  of  Washington,  and 
kept  a  watchful  eye  on  every  subject  and  circum 
stance  connected  with  the  affairs  of  the  adminis 
tration  and  the  welfare  of  the  country.  He  was 
confident  that  war  could  be  avoided.  To  accom 
plish  this  purpose  he,  with  Governor  Strong,  Mr. 
King,  and  Mr.  Cabot,  his  intimate  and  confidential 
associates,  then  in  the  Senate,  in  February  or  March, 
1794,  met  to  consult,  and,  if  possible,  devise  some 
course  to  secure  the  country  from  the  awful  disaster 
which  seemed  inevitable,  all  argument  in  Congress 
having  become  ineffectual  with  the  majority.  They 
determined  upon  the  expedient  of  a  mission  to  Eng- 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  87 

land  forthwith  to  open  a  negotiation  for  a  treaty  on 
the  point  in  controversy  between  the  two  nations. 
They  agreed  to  recommend  the  nomination  of  John 
Jay,  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  perhaps  one  other, 
whose  name  is  unknown  to  the  writer,  for  that  mis 
sion.  Mr.  Ellsworth  was  designated  to  confer  with 
the  President  on  the  subject.  He  related  to  him 
the  confidential  consultation  held  in  relation  to  the 
alarming  condition  of  the  country.  .  .  . 

"  General  Washington  listened  to  the  communica 
tion  with  apparent  deep  concern,  and  after  a  long 
and  familiar  conversation  on  the  subject  said  : 

"  <  Well,  what  can  be  done,  Mr.  Ellsworth  ? ' 

"Mr.  Ellsworth  informed  him  of  the  result  of 
their  consultation,  ( that  a  Minister  Plenipotentiary 
be  sent  to  England  forthwith/  and  named  the 
persons  selected  by  himself  and  friends  for  the 
mission. 

"  It  was  apparent  that  to  the  President  this  was  a 
new  project. 

"  At  the  close  of  the  interview  the  President 
said :  *  Well,  sir,  I  will  take  this  subject  into 
consideration/ 

"  Mr.  Jay  was  nominated  on  the  16th  of  April, 
and  although  this  measure  was  scarcely  suspected  by 
Congress,  and  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  was  opposed  to  it,  the  nomination  was 
approved  by  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  18  to  8.  The 


88  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

result  of  the  mission,  notwithstanding  the  intrigues 
of  the  French  Ministry,  was  the  well-known  Jay 
treaty. 

"  After  the  treaty  was  approved  by  the  Senate  the 
hostility  toward  it  seemed  more  alarming  than  ever, 
and  while  the  President  had  the  subject  under  con 
sideration  the  anxiety  of  Mr.  Ellsworth  increased 
with  the  delay.  He  thought  the  least  appearance  of 
indecision  in  him  would  be  ruin  to  the  country,  that 
every  day's  procrastination  increased  the  dangers  of 
the  republic.  .  .  .  During  this  state  of  suspense  by 
reason  of  General  Washington's  delay  to  sign  the 
treaty,  Mr.  Ellsworth  walked  the  hall  in  the  most 
intense  anxiety  as  to  the  result,  and  scarcely  closed 
his  eyes  in  sound  sleep  for  several  nights. 

"  While  the  treaty  was  under  discussion,  Mr.  Liv 
ingston  offered  a  resolution  '  That  the  President  be 
requested  to  lay  before  the  House  a  copy  of  the 
instructions  given  to  the  Minister  of  the  United 
States  who  negotiated  the  treaty,  together  with  the 
documents,  etc.,  with  the  exception  of  such  papers  as 
any  existing  negotiations  may  render  improper.' 
This  was  adopted  (62  to  37),  and  was  sent  to  the 
President.  The  members  of  the  Cabinet  unanimously 
advised  the  President  not  to  comply  with  the  resolu 
tion.  Mr.  Ellsworth  was  requested  to  draw  up  an 
argument  showing  that  the  papers  could  not  be  con 
stitutionally  demanded  by  the  House  of  Representa- 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  89 

tives,  and  a  message  was  sent  by  the  President  in 
accordance  therewith."  1 

Forbidden,  as  I  have  said,  by  the  limitations  of  an 
address  to  show  what  Mr.  Ellsworth  was  as  a  Sena 
tor  by  tracing  his  work  in  detail  from  year  to  year, 
I  cannot  leave  this  most  important  part  of  his  career 
without  trying  to  indicate  by  other  means  what  his 
position  in  the  Senate  was,  and  what  he  meant  to 
the  men  he  met  there.  He  was  constant  in  attend 
ance,  shared  in  all  debates,  took  part  in  all  business 
and  in  the  making  of  all  laws.  Influence  in  the 
Senate  always  rests  largely  upon  these  somewhat 
humdrum  qualities  of  attention,  industry,  and  ac 
tivity,  and  how  potent  Ellsworth's  influence  was  is 
sharply  shown  by  a  little  anecdote.  Aaron  Burr,  who 
served  nearly  six  years  with  Ellsworth,  said  of  him, 
"  If  he  should  chance  to  spell  the  name  of  the  Deity 
with  two  D's,  it  would  take  the  Senate  three  weeks 
to  expunge  the  superfluous  letter." 

But  we  have  a  witness  on  this  point  far  more 
important  and  far  more  elaborate  than  Burr.  Wil 
liam  Maclay  was  a  Senator  from  Pennsylvania 
during  the  first  two  years  of  our  government.  At 
a  period  when  the  Senate  sat  behind  closed  doors 
and  had  no  records  of  debates,  he  kept  a  careful 
diary  narrating  their  proceedings.  Historically 
therefore  this  diary  is  valuable,  and  constitutes  the 

1  The  New  York  Evening  Post,  July  3,  1876. 


90  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

chief  claim  of  its  writer  to  the  notice  of  posterity. 
Senator  Maclay's  editor  and  descendant  asserts  that 
his  ancestor  was  the  true  founder  of  the  Democratic 
party,  an  honor  usually  accorded  to  Jefferson.  If 
consistent  opposition  to  every  measure  proposed, 
if  suspicion  and  hostility  directed  unsparingly  at 
Washington,  Adams,  Hamilton,  and  every  one  who 
supported  or  acted  with  them,  if  general  dissatisfac 
tion  with  everything  that  was  done  entitle  a  man 
to  be  considered  the  founder  of  the  Democratic 
party,  Mr.  Maclay  certainly  preceded  Mr.  Jefferson 
in  all  these  directions  and  his  descendant's  claim  of 
glory  for  him  is  fully  made  out.  He  naturally  took 
a  very  dark  view  of  Ellsworth,  and  therefore  his  un 
willing  testimony  to  that  gentleman's  place  and 
power  in  the  Senate  is  most  valuable.  From  the 
diary  we  learn  that  Ellsworth  dealt  with  every 
point  of  procedure,  with  the  powers  of  the  Vice- 
President,  the  manner  of  receiving  the  House  and 
the  style  of  the  enacting  clause.  To  Ellsworth  we 
learn  was  due  the  resolution  by  which  the  Senate 
system  of  considering  bills  in  Committee  of  the 
Whole  without  the  Vice-President's  leaving  the 
chair  was  established.  Ellsworth  defended  a  large 
bench  of  judges,  and  Maclay  says  of  the  Judiciary 
Act,  Ellsworth's  great  work  in  our  early  legislation, 
"  This  vile  bill  was  a  child  of  his."  Maclay  also 
thought  that  this  bill  would  "blow  up  the  Consti- 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  91 

tution,"  but  posterity  knows  that  it  became  one  of 
the  bulwarks  of  our  great  charter.  Again  it  was 
the  Connecticut  Senator  who  in  an  elaborate  speech 
of  high  ability  asserted  that  the  President's  power 
of  removal  was  absolute  and  the  power  of  appoint 
ment  alone  limited,  —  a  doctrine  finally  accepted 
by  the  Senate  after  eighty  years  of  intermittent 
discussion,  legislation,  and  debate.  On  the  same 
authority  we  find  that  Ellsworth  did  not  confine 
himself  to  legal  and  constitutional  questions,  but 
presented  the  bill  to  organize  the  territories,  and  had 
a  leading  part  in  measures  relating  to  the  army  and 
tariff.  It  is  a  remarkable  record.  Consider  care 
fully  this  dry  list  of  momentous  questions,  and  then 
you  realize  how  the  influence  and  power  of  this 
statesman,  long  since  dead,  are  felt,  more  than  a 
century  after  his  work  was  done,  in  the  daily  con 
duct  of  the  business  of  our  great  government. 

And  what  are  the  comments  of  the  diarist  who 
records  so  many  deeds  and  credits  such  large  activi 
ties  to  a  single  man  ?  They  are  interesting  and  in 
the  broadest  sense  instructive.  He  says  that  Ells 
worth  leads,  that  he  is  all  powerful  and  eloquent  in 
debate,  and  that  he  is,  although  "  endless,"  really  a 
man  of  great  ingenuity  and  ability.  On  one  occa 
sion  Maclay  said  to  him,  "  The  man  must  knit  his 
net  close  that  can  catch  you;  but  you  trip  some 
times/'  Yet  at  the  same  time  he  says  of  Ellsworth 


92  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

that  "  it  is  truly  surprising  to  me,  the  pains  he  will 
display  to  varnish  over  villany  and  to  give  roguery 
effect  without  avowed  license."  He  describes  Ells 
worth  as  a  tool  of  "  Hamilton  and  his  crew,"  whom 
he  regarded  as  totally  corrupt,  and  toward  the  close 
of  the  session  says,  "  the  man  has  abilities,  but 
abilities  without  candor  and  integrity  are  charac 
teristics  of  the  devil."  What  a  picture  is  here ! 
At  the  very  dawn  of  the  Republic  a  President 
weak,  ambitious,  inclined  to  monarchy,  the  tool  of 
designing  men,  —  such  according  to  the  diarist  was 
George  Washington.  The  Vice-President  also  lean 
ing  to  monarchy,  violent,  arbitrary,  absurd,  —  such,  if 
we  believe  Maclay,  was  John  Adams.  Then  there 
are  "  Hamilton  and  his  crew,"  corrupt,  dangerous, 
battening  on  the  public  treasury,  with  an  equally 
corrupt  set  supporting  the  Secretary  in  Congress. 
The  Senate  is  quite  as  bad ;  it  is  deeply  corrupted, 
false  to  freedom  and  to  democratic  ideals.  One  of 
its  great  leaders  is  a  man  engaged  in  "  varnishing 
over  roguery  "  and  "  destitute  of  candor  and  integ 
rity."  Ex  pede  Herculem !  If  Ellsworth  was  a 
man  of  this  kind,  what  must  the  other  Senators 
have  been  ? 

How  false  it  all  is !  How  well  we  know  now  the 
greatness,  the  unspotted  purity  of  Washington,  the 
fiery  courage  and  unbending  patriotism  of  Adams, 
the  vast  constructive  genius  of  Hamilton,  the  com- 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  93 

manding  abilities,  the  lasting  services,  the  unsullied 
honor  of  Ellsworth  !  What  a  lesson  too  is  here  if  we 
will  but  take  the  trouble  to  learn  it !  I  never  re 
member  the  time  when  I  have  not  heard  the  Senate 
of  the  moment  described  as  at  its  lowest  point,  as 
having  fallen  far  down  from  the  high  level  of  the 
earlier  and  better  days.  Then  I  read  Maclay  and 
take  heart,  for  if  he  is  right  and  our  Senate  and  our 
government  were  such  as  he  described,  and  if  the 
bitter  critics  of  the  moment  are  also  right  and  we 
are  worse  now  than  in  the  earlier  and  better  days, 
then  indeed  has  the  impossible  come  to  pass,  for  the 
Republic  still  survives,  greater  and  more  powerful, 
more  honored  at  home  and  abroad  than  ever  before. 
Then  I  feel  sure  that  the  critics  of  this  kind,  past  and 
present,  must  be  wrong,  for  if  they  were  not  the  Re 
public  would  have  died.  The  Maclays,  like  the  poor, 
are  always  with  us,  sole  proprietors  of  righteousness, 
undisturbed  by  any  outcry  against  their  self-imposed 
monopoly.  They  have  their  value,  no  doubt,  although 
their  own  estimate  of  their  worth  is  probably  be 
yond  the  market  price.  I  would  not  willingly  speak 
harshly  of  any  living  successor  of  Maclay,  but  of  the 
dead  critic  fronting  the  merciless  gaze  of  history, 
something  may  be  said.  Malignity  easily  assumes 
the  garb  of  a  noble  independence,  while  envy,  hatred, 
and  all  uncharitableness  delight  to  masquerade  in  the 
guise  of  the  most  loved  and  admired  virtues.  As  we 


94  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

see  now  from  the  cool  eminence  of  a  new  century  the 
distant  figure  of  Oliver  Ellsworth  rise  up  clear  and 
serene,  his  brow  laurelled  with  good  deeds  done  for 
his  country,  his  memory  fragrant  with  patriotism, 
honor,  and  noble  thoughts,  it  is  well  to  turn  to 
Maclay's  diary  and  to  remember  that  this  dead  states 
man  fought  once  in  the  dust  of  the  arena,  was  thus 
attacked  and  slandered  and  misjudged  even  by  one 
who  stood  near  him.  The  career  of  the  statesman 
and  jurist  shines  all  the  brighter  by  the  contrast,  and 
History  with  her  calm  voice,  as  she  unrolls  the  page 
and  spreads  the  whole  record  before  our  eyes,  bids  us 
even  now  to  be  temperate  in  judgment,  to  be  tolerant 
as  well  as  just,  to  look  out  upon  the  present  with  a 
kindly  as  well  as  a  searching  gaze  and  above  all  to 
take  heart  and  hold  fast  to  a  deep  and  abiding  faith 
in  the  American  people  and  in  the  Republic  of  our 
love. 

I  have  dwelt  at  length  on  Ellsworth's  services  in 
the  Senate,  and  yet  am  conscious  that  I  have  not  done 
justice  to  it  or  shown  in  such  measure  as  ought  to  be 
shown  his  attitude  upon  many  great  questions,  espe 
cially  of  foreign  relations,  where  he  gave  all  his  influ 
ence  and  support  to  the  neutrality  policy,  to  resistance 
to  the  encroachments  of  France,  and  to  the  mainte 
nance  of  peace  with  England,  culminating  in  the  Jay 
treaty,  for  which  he  did  battle  in  the  angry  conflict 
that  arose  over  its  provisions.  But  I  must  be  con- 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  95 

tent  with  the  effort  I  have  made  to  bring  out  in  re 
lief  the  brilliancy  of  his  Senatorial  service,  and  the 
great  part  he  played  in  the  formative  period  of  our 
national  government. 

The  struggle  over  the  treaty  with  England  marked 
indeed  the  close  of  his  work  in  the  Senate.  The  re 
jection  of  Rutledge  by  the  Senate  and  the  refusal  of 
Gushing  to  accept  the  Chief  Justiceship  made  it  more 
than  ever  important  to  fill  that  great  post  with  a 
man  who  would  command  not  only  the  support  of 
the  Federalists,  but  the  confidence  of  the  country  as 
well.  After  much  deliberation  Washington  turned 
to  Ellsworth,  and  appointed  him  to  the  vacant  place. 
He  accepted  with  reluctance  the  duty  which  had  come 
to  him  unsought,  and  was  sworn  in  as  Chief  Justice 
on  the  8th  of  March,  1796.  He  came  to  his  great 
office  well  qualified  both  by  professional  training  and 
by  experience  as  a  statesman  and  law-maker.  He 
served  well  and  efficiently,  and  maintained  and 
strengthened  the  character  of  the  court.  Yet  it 
was  not  as  Chief  Justice  that  his  best  work  was 
done.  Ellsworth  did  good  service  in  admiralty  cases, 
with  which  he  was  particularly  familiar,  and  in  de 
fining  and  settling  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Court. 
His  most  famous  opinion  was  in  favor  of  the  doc 
trine  of  perpetual  allegiance,  which  has  since  been 
abandoned.  But  there  was  no  case  where  he  ren 
dered  a  decision  which  is  at  all  comparable  in  im- 


96  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

portance  with  his  achievements  in  the  Constitutional 
Convention  or  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 
In  his  years  of  service  as  Chief  Justice  the  great  con 
stitutional  questions  by  the  decision  of  which  the 
national  principle  was  to  be  built  up  and  extended 
did  not  meet  him.  They  were  to  be  reserved  for 
the  touch  of  a  mightier  hand  than  his.  Yet  on  the 
bench  of  the  Supreme  Court,  although  he  did  not 
originate  doctrines  nor  leave  an  enduring  mark  upon 
our  history  as  he  had  done  when  delegate  and  Sen 
ator,  he  nevertheless  met  thoroughly  and  well  all  the 
requirements  of  his  high  place. 

Had  he  remained  Chief  Justice,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  would  have  left  a  very  great  reputa 
tion,  but  a  call  came  to  him  after  four  years  of 
judicial  service  which  he  could  not  refuse.  We 
became  engaged  in  actual  hostilities,  though  not  in 
declared  war,  with  France.  The  Federal  leaders 
were  for  war,  but  John  Adams  determined  to  make 
one  more  effort  for  peace.  He  profoundly  believed, 
as  Washington  had  believed,  that  the  young  nation 
must  be  kept  from  war  if  possible.  In  this  he  was 
greatly  right,  but  he  was  right  in  such  a  wrong  way 
that,  while  he  saved  the  country  from  grave  danger, 
he  shattered  his  party  in  doing  it.  His  first  step 
was  a  blunder,  for  he  named  William  Vans  Murray 
alone  to  re-open  relations  with  France.  Something 
stronger  than  that  was  needed  if  the  confirmation  of 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  97 

the  Senate  was  to  be  obtained,  and  the  President, 
quickly  conscious  of  his  error  and  of  impending 
defeat,  added  Ellsworth  and  Patrick  Henry,  for 
whom  Governor  Davie  of  North  Carolina  was  after 
wards  substituted,  to  the  Commission.  Thus  forti 
fied,  the  Commission  was  confirmed.  Ellsworth's 
health  and  inclination  alike  opposed  an  acceptance 
which  involved  not  only  a  long  journey  and  trying 
responsibilities,  but  also  a  sharp  difference  of  opinion 
with  the  other  Federalist  chiefs,  the  friends  with 
whom  he  had  labored  for  years.  But  he  felt  now,  as 
he  had  felt  at  the  time  of  the  Jay  treaty,  that 
peace  was  essential  to  the  young  Republic  and  its 
unformed  government,  and  that  no  honorable  effort 
should  be  spared  to  preserve  it.  The  request  of  the 
President  came  to  him  as  an  order  to  a  high  duty, 
and  such  an  order  it  was  not  in  him  to  disobey. 

On  November  3,  1799,  the  envoys  sailed  from 
Newport,  and  on  the  27th  they  reached  Lisbon.  For 
those  days  the  voyage  was  quick,  but  brief  as  the 
interval  had  been  it  had  sufficed  to  change  the  face 
of  the  European  world.  The  18th  Brumaire  had 
come  and  gone,  the  Directory  had  fallen,  and  Napo 
leon  was  master  of  France.  Warned  by  the  experi 
ence  of  their  predecessors,  Ellsworth  and  Davie 
proceeded  slowly  toward  France,  and  sent  a  letter  to 
announce  their  coming.  Talleyrand  was  still  in 
office,  as  ready  no  doubt  to  be  bribed  as  before,  but 


98  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

his  new  master  was  not  an  idiot  like  the  Directory, 
which  for  a  little  illicit  gain  had  been  ready  apparently 
to  bring  on  war  with  America.  The  utter  folly  of 
making  war  on  the  United  States  at  that  moment 
was  indeed  obvious  at  once  to  Napoleon.  The  mes 
sage  went  back  to  the  American  envoys  that  "  they 
were  awaited  with  impatience  and  would  be  received 
with  warmth."  Ellsworth  and  Davie  pressed  for 
ward,  reached  Paris  on  March  2,  1800,  met  Murray 
there,  and  in  a  few  days  were  engaged  in  negotiations 
with  a  Commission  appointed  by  the  First  Consul  and 
headed  by  Joseph  Bonaparte. 

There  is  a  tradition  that  when  Napoleon's  pierc 
ing  gaze  fell  upon  Ellsworth  at  the  audience  given 
to  the  American  Commissioners  soon  after  their 
arrival,  he  said,  "  I  must  make  a  treaty  with  that 
man."  The  story  may  readily  be  believed,  for  differ 
ent  as  Ellsworth  was  in  his  sober  attire  from  those 
about  him,  upon  whom  the  light  of  the  coming 
glories  of  the  empire  was  already  beginning  to  shine, 
he  was  a  man  certain  to  attract  attention  anywhere. 
He  was  tall  and  erect.  He  had  a  strong  face,  and 
large  penetrating  blue  eyes  looked  out  fearlessly 
upon  the  world  from  beneath  heavy  arched  brows. 
His  expression  was  pleasant  and  his  presence  com 
manding,  instinct  with  the  dignity  of  one  who  had 
presided  over  a  great  court.  He  was  particular  and 
very  quiet  in  his  dress,  with  his  hair  powdered  in  a 


OLIVER   ELLSWORTH  99 

fashion  even  then  becoming  antique,  and  he  still 
wore  silk  stockings  and  silver  knee-buckles  after  the 
mode  of  a  vanishing  period.  Generally  absorbed  in 
meditation,  often  talking  to  himself  when  he  walked 
or  rode,  his  thoughts  were  nevertheless  so  ordered 
and  disciplined,  that  when  he  spoke  his  words  came 
rapidly  and  earnestly  as  he  marshalled  his  argu 
ments  and  stated  his  opinions.  Altogether  a  stately 
figure,  we  may  say,  one  very  typical  of  a  strong  race 
with  an  obvious  force  of  character  and  intelligence 
which  was  perceived  at  once  by  the  greatest  genius 
of  the  time,  as  his  glance  fell  upon  the  sober  dress 
and  calm  face  of  the  New  England  statesman  and 
jurist,  descendant  of  many  Puritans. 

The  negotiations  thus  begun,  proceeded  smoothly 
enough.  The  revival  of  the  old  treaties  of  alliance 
demanded  by  the  French  and  the  indemnities  in 
sisted  upon  by  the  Americans  for  the  captures  made 
by  the  privateers  of  the  Kepublic  which  had  brought 
about  actual  hostilities  were  found  incapable  of  ad 
justment.  The  extreme  Federalists  at  home  thought 
the  negotiations  should  have  ended  then,  but  Ells 
worth  laid  aside  the  irreconcilable  points  for  a  more 
convenient  season,  and  with  his  colleagues  made  a 
treaty  by  which  France  agreed  to  pay  her  debts  to 
the  United  States,  and  the  commercial  relations  of 
the  two  countries  were  arranged.  Free  ships  were 
to  make  free  goods ;  the  neutral  flag  was  to  protect 


100  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

the  cargo,  and  commerce  was  made  reciprocally  free 
on  the  footing  of  the  most  favored  nation.  The 
work  was  chiefly  done  by  Ellsworth,  and  can  be 
summed  up  in  a  word.  He  abandoned  the  discussion 
of  the  old  grievances,  and  made  a  new  treaty  cover 
ing  similar  questions  in  the  future,  which  was  calcu 
lated  to  stimulate  the  expansion  of  our  trade  and 
which  averted  war.  The  treaty  was  not  thought  a 
very  brilliant  one  at  the  time,  but  it  is  easy  to  see 
now  that  it  was  eminently  wise.  It  was  infinitely 
more  important  to  the  United  States  to  be  rid  of  the 
treaty  of  1778,  than  to  secure  indemnities  for  the 
captures  of  the  French  privateers.  By  Ellsworth's 
policy  we  shook  ourselves  free  from  an  entangling 
alliance,  and  the  indemnities,  a  mere  matter  of  money, 
found  a  later  settlement.  These  questions  thus  post 
poned  were  the  crucial  points  of  the  negotiation. 
The  treaty  itself  was  well  enough  for  commercial 
purposes,  but  its  great  work  was  in  stopping  hostili 
ties  and  assuring  an  honorable  peace,  which  was  of 
great  moment  to  our  new  government.  It  also 
brought  about  a  friendly  understanding  and  opened 
the  way  to  the  Louisiana  treaty,  an  inestimable 
benefit.  Altogether  it  was  good  work  well  done, 
the  work  of  a  statesman  far-seeing,  strong,  and  cour 
ageous,  who  looked  beneath  the  surface  and  was 
guided  by  general  principles  and  by  a  settled  policy. 
The  treaty  was  signed  on  the  30th  of  September, 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  101 

1800,  and  was  followed  by  a  fete  given  to  the 
American  envoys,  which  was  more  significant  of 
the  desire  of  France  to  be  on  good  terms  with 
the  American  Republic  than  anything  that  had 
happened.  I  will  borrow  Mr.  Bancroft's  account  of 
this  now  forgotten  event,  which  made  much  noise  in 
its  day,  and  was  carefully  noted  by  European  observ 
ers  of  contemporary  politics  and  of  the  signs  of  the 
times. 

"  The  French  government  resolved  to  give  them 
on  their  departure  the  clearest  proof  of  the  enduring 
good  will  of  France  for  the  American  Republic.  It 
chanced  that  Joseph  Bonaparte,  who  was  the  richest 
of  the  family,  possessed  a  magnificent  country-seat  at 
Morfontaine,  which  lies  some  leagues  from  Paris  on 
the  road  to  Havre.  There,  on  their  way,  at  the 
chateau  of  Joseph  Bonaparte,  under  whose  lead  the 
treaty  with  the  United  States  had  been  concluded 
on  the  part  of  France,  the  American  ministers  were 
invited  to  be  the  guests  at  a  farewell  festival  before 
their  embarkation. 

"  The  American  envoys  arrived  at  the  village  of 
Morfontaine  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and 
found  there  a  large  number  of  the  French  magis 
trates  already  assembled.  At  four  o'clock  Napoleon 
Bonaparte,  the  First  Consul  of  France,  .  .  .  entered 
the  chateau  amidst  salutes  from  artillery  and  bands  of 
music.  During  the  evening  the  castle  and  adjacent 


102  OLIVER   ELLSWORTH 

buildings  were  brilliantly  illuminated.  The  approval 
of  the  treaty  by  the  First  Consul,  of  which  assurance 
was  formally  given  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
was  followed  by  the  firing  of  cannon.  After  this  the 
guests,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  in  number,  were 
seated  at  tables  in  three  large  halls.  To  the  largest 
of  them  the  name  was  given  of  the  '  Hall  of  the 
Union/  It  was  superbly  decorated  with  wreaths 
and  numerous  inscriptions  commemorating  the  4th 
of  July,  1776,  and  other  days  famous  for  important 
actions  in  America  during  their  struggle  for  indepen 
dence.  The  initial  letters  of  France  and  America 
were  inscribed  in  many  places.  The  City  of  Phila 
delphia,  which  was  then  the  seat  of  the  Federal 
Congress,  and  Havre,  which  was  the  port  for 
the  embarkation  of  the  American  ministers,  were 
represented  with  an  angel  on  the  wing  from 
Havre  to  Philadelphia,  bearing  an  olive  branch. 
The  second  hall  was  called  the  '  Hall  of  Washing 
ton/  and  was  adorned  with  his  bust  and  the  French 
and  American  flags  standing  side  by  side.  The 
third  hall  was  called  the  '  Hall  of  Franklin/  whose 
bust  was  its  ornament.  All  the  decorations  were 
especially  designed  to  commemorate  the  indepen 
dence  of  the  United  States  and  French  liberty. 
In  that  spirit  the  First  Consul,  Napoleon,  then  just 
thirty-one  years  of  age,  gave  as  the  first  toast :  '  The 
memory  of  those  who  have  fallen  in  the  defence  of 


OLIVER  ELLSWORTH  103 

French  and  American  liberty.'  The  second  toast 
was  proposed  by  the  Third  Consul,  Lebrun :  <  The 
union  of  America  with  the  powers  of  the  North  to 
enforce  respect  for  the  liberties  of  the  seas/  Last 
of  all,  Cambaceres,  the  Second  Consul,  in  honor  of 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  proposed  '  The 
successor  of  Washington/  After  supper  there  was 
a  brilliant  and  ingenious  display  of  fireworks  in  the 
garden.  Next  followed  an  exquisite  concert  of  music, 
and  about  midnight  the  -private  theatre  was  opened 
for  the  performance  of  two  short  comedies,  in  which 
the  best  of  the  actors  and  actresses  from  Paris  played 
the  parts.  At  the  conclusion  of  one  of  the  plays  a 
song  complimentary  to  the  United  States  was  sung ; 
and  thus  the  evening  came  to  an  end." 

The  Chief  Justice  was  not  well  when  he  left  the 
United  States,  and  the  Atlantic  voyage  followed  by 
a  winter  journey  through  Spain  and  by  the  cares 
and  anxiety  of  the  negotiation  broke  his  health 
down  completely.  Before  leaving  France  he  re 
signed  the  Chief  Justiceship,  and  it  was  with  but 
slight  hopes  of  improvement  that  he  crossed  to 
England.  There,  however,  contrary  to  expectation 
he  grew  rapidly  better.  The  repose  after  so  many 
labors,  the  climate,  the  attentions  which  he  re 
ceived  from  bench  and  bar,  and  a  congenial  society, 
all  helped  him  to  recovery.  His  stay  in  England, 
free  from  care,  diversified  by  little  journeys,  one 


104  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

among  others  to  the  cradle  of  his  race,  made  one  of 
the  pleasantest  periods  in  a  laborious  life.  He 
stayed  in  London  and  its  neighborhood  until  the 
spring  of  1801,  and  then  returned  to  America  and  to 
his  home  in  Windsor.  But  complete  withdrawal 
from  public  affairs  was  not  to  be  his  portion.  He 
had  scarcely  settled  down  in  his  well-loved  home 
when  he  was  appointed  again  to  his  old  place  in 
the  Governor's  Council,  which  still  constituted  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Errors  of  the  State.  It  was  a 
duty  to  be  performed,  and  weary  and  worn  as  he 
was,  he  accepted  it.  There  he  served,  after  his  life 
long  habit,  faithfully  and  well,  despite  severe  and 
recurring  attacks  of  disease.  The  old  judicial  sys 
tem  was  changed  in  1807,  and  the  Chief  Justiceship 
under  the  new  arrangement  was  offered  to  Ells 
worth.  He  at  first  consented,  but  then  withdrew 
his  acceptance.  It  was  too  late  for  more  work,  for 
the  performance  of  further  duties.  The  hand  of 
death  was  on  him,  and  on  the  27th  of  November, 
1807,  he  died  at  Windsor. 

So  a  life  filled  with  high  service  came  to  an  end. 
Even  imperfectly  as  I  have  traced  it  we  can  see,  I 
think,  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  As  I  have 
studied  Oliver  Ellsworth  and  come  to  know  him,  it 
seems  to  me  as  if  he  must  have  been  the  type  of 
man  Milton  had  in  mind  when  he  described  a  free 
commonwealth.  "What  government,"  he  asks, 


OLIVER   ELLSWORTH  105 

"  comes  nearer  to  the  precept  of  Christ  than  a  free 
commonwealth,  wherein  they  who  are  the  greatest 
are  perpetual  servants  and  drudges  to  the  public  at 
their  own  cost  and  charges ;  neglect  their  own  af 
fairs,  yet  are  not  elevated  above  their  brethren; 
live  soberly  in  their  families,  walk  the  street  as 
other  men,  may  be  spoken  to  freely,  familiarly, 
friendly,  without  adoration  ?  " 

After  such  fashion  he  passed  through  his  great 
public  career.  Distinguished  at  the  bar,  he  brought 
the  training  of  a  lawyer  to  his  work  as  a  statesman. 
Most  eminent  as  a  maker  of  constitutions  and  laws, 
he  carried  his  large  experience  with  him  to  adorn 
the  bench,  where  he  occupied  the  highest  place.  As 
a  diplomatist  he  united  all  his  powers  as  statesman 
and  jurist  in  making  a  treaty  which,  dust  to-day,  was 
one  of  the  momentous  events  in  the  early  years  of 
conflict  and  peril.  In  the  history  of  Connecticut  he 
stands  side  by  side  with  his  illustrious  colleague 
Roger  Sherman,  whom  he  modestly  says  he  took 
for  his  model,  and  who  was  one  of  the  most  original, 
most  resolute,  and  most  far-seeing  men  of  that  great 
period. 

In  the  history  of  the  United  States  the  vital  com 
promise  which  secured  the  existence  of  the  Consti 
tution  is  branded  with  his  name,  and  the  great 
system  of  the  Federal  courts  and  of  the  jurispru 
dence  of  the  United  States  bears  upon  its  foundation 


106  OLIVER  ELLSWORTH 

stone  the  name  of  the  lawyer  who  drafted  the  first 
Judiciary  Act.  "Ellsworth  was  one  of  the  pillars 
of  Washington's  administration/'  said  John  Adams. 
Can  there  be  a  better  summary  of  his  life  or  higher 
praise  of  a  public  man  than  that  simple  sentence  ? 
The  man  whom  Washington  trusted  we  may  safely 
revere,  and  he  needs  no  monument  to  recall  his 
memory,  for  that  is  safe  while  the  Constitution  of 
his  country  and  the  administration  of  her  laws  live 
on  in  strength  and  power,  the  bulwarks  of  the  great 
Republic. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER 

HIS   ORATORY  AND  HIS  INFLUENCE* 

STATUES  and  monuments  can  justify  their  exist 
ence  on  only  two  grounds,  —  the  nature  of  the  sub 
ject  they  commemorate  or  as  works  of  art.  They 
ought,  of  course,  to  possess  both  qualifications  in  the 
fullest  measure.  Theoretically,  at  least,  a  great  art 
should  ever  illustrate  and  should  always  have  a 
great  subject.  But  art  cannot  command  at  will  a 
fit  subject,  and  it  is  therefore  fortunately  true  that 
if  the  art  be  great  it  is  its  own  all-sufficient  warrant 
for  existence.  That  Michael  Angelo's  unsurpassed 
figure  called  "  Meditation "  should  be  in  theory  a 
portrait  statue  and  bear  the  name  of  one  of  the 
most  worthless  of  the  evil  Medicean  race  is,  after  all, 
of  slight  moment.  The  immortal  art  remains  to  de 
light  and  to  uplift  every  one  who  looks  upon  it  with 
considerate  eyes  ;  and  it  matters  little  that  all  the 
marvellous  figures  which  the  chapel  of  the  Medici 
enshrines  were  commanded  and  carved  in  order  to 

1  An  address  delivered  in  Washington,  January  18,  1900,  before 
the  President  of  the  United  States  and  his  Cabinet,  the  Supreme 
Court  and  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  on  the  occasion  of  the 
unveiling  of  a  statue  of  Daniel  Webster. 


108  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

keep  alive  the  memory  of  a  remarkable  family 
steeped  in  crime  and  a  curse  to  every  people  among 
whom  they  came.  On  the  other  hand,  hard  as  it 
often  is,  we  can  endure  bad  art  if  there  be  no  ques 
tion  that  the  great  man  or  the  shining  deed  deserves 
the  commemoration  of  bronze  or  marble.  But  when 
the  art  is  bad  and  the  subject  unworthy  or  ephem 
eral,  then  the  monument,  as  was  said  of  Sir  John 
Vanbrugh's  palaces,  is  simply  a  heavy  load  to  the 
patient  earth  and  an  offence  to  the  eyes  of  succeed 
ing  generations. 

In  these  days  the  world  sins  often  and  grievously 
in  this  way,  and  is  much  given  to  the  raising  of 
monuments,  too  frequently  upon  trifling  provocation. 
Yet  the  fault  lies  not  in  the  mere  multiplication  of 
monuments.  The  genius  of  Greece  and  of  the  Re 
naissance  multiplied  statues,  and  very  wisely,  too, 
because  art  then  was  at  once  splendid  and  exuber 
ant.  But  great  sculptors  and  painters  are  as  few 
now  as  they  were  plentiful  in  the  age  of  Phidias  or 
of  Michael  Angelo  and  Donatello,  and  we  erect 
statues  and  monuments  with  a  prodigal  hand  chiefly 
because  we  are  very  rich,  and  because  mechanical 
appliances  have  made  easy  the  moulding  of  metal 
and  the  carving  of  stone.  It  behooves  us,  therefore, 
not  only  to  choose  with  care  artists  who  can  give  us 
worthy  work  for  posterity  to  look  upon,  but  also  to 
avoid  recklessness  in  rearing  monuments  upon  slight 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  109 

grounds.  At  present  there  seems  no  disposition  to 
heed  these  salutary  principles.  The  cities  and  towns 
of  Europe  and  of  England  swarm  with  modern 
statues  and  monuments  as  a  rule  ugly  or  common 
place,  too  often  glaring  and  vulgar,  and  very  fre 
quently  erected  to  the  memory  and  the  glory  of  the 
illustrious  obscure  and  of  the  parish  hero.  We 
Americans  sin  less  often,  I  think,  in  these  respects 
than  the  Old  World,  but  we  follow  their  practice 
none  the  less  and  with  many  melancholy  results. 
We  should  break  away  from  the  present  example  of 
Europe  and  realize  that  the  erection  of  an  enduring 
monument  in  a  public  place  is  a  very  serious  matter. 
We  should  seek  out  the  best  artists  and  should  permit 
no  monuments  to  deeds  or  to  men  who  do  not  deserve 
them  and  who  will  not  themselves  be  monumental 
in  history  and  before  the  eyes  of  posterity.  Here  in 
Washington,  especially,  we  should  bear  this  principle 
in  mind,  for  this  is  the  city  of  the  nation,  and  it 
should  have  no  place  for  local  glories  or  provincial 
heroes.  Yet  even  here  we  have  been  so  careless  that 
while  we  have  given  space  to  one  or  more  statues  of 
estimable  persons,  the  fact  of  whose  existence  will 
be  known  only  by  their  effigies,  we  have  found  as  yet 
no  place  for  a  statue  of  Hamilton,  the  greatest  con 
structive  statesman  of  our  history,  or  of  the  great 
soldier  whose  genius  made  the  campaign  of  Vicksburg 
rival  that  of  Ulm. 


110  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

To-day  no  such  doubts  or  criticisms  need  haunt  or 
perplex  us.  We  can  thank  the  artist  who  has  con 
ceived,  and  most  unreservedly  can  we  thank  the 
generous  and  public-spirited  citizen  of  New  Hamp 
shire  who  has  given,  the  statue  which  we  unveil  this 
morning.  If  any  one  among  our  statesmen  has  a 
title  to  a  statue  in  Washington,  it  is  Daniel 
Webster,  for  this  is  the  national  capital,  and  no 
man  was  ever  more  national  in  his  conceptions  and 
his  achievements  than  he.  Born  and  bred  in  New 
Hampshire,  which  first  elected  him  to  the  House,  he 
long  represented  Massachusetts,  the  State  of  his 
adoption,  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  and 
thus  two  historic  Commonwealths  cherish  his 
memory.  But  much  as  he  loved  them  both,  his 
public  service  was  given  to  the  nation,  and  so  given 
that  no  man  doubts  his  title  to  a  statue  here  in  this 
city.  Why  is  there  neither  doubt  nor  question  as  to 
Webster's  right  to  this  great  and  lasting  honor 
half  a  century  after  his  death  ?  If  we  cannot  an 
swer  this  question  so  plainly  that  he  who  runs  may 
read,  then  we  unveil  our  own  ignorance  when  we 
unveil  his  statue  and  leave  the  act  without  excuse. 
I  shall  try,  briefly,  to  put  the  answer  to  this  essen 
tial  question  into  words.  We  all  feel  in  our  hearts 
and  minds  the  reply  that  should  be  made.  It  has 
fallen  to  me  to  give  expression  to  that  feeling. 

What,  then,  are  the  real  reasons  for  the  great 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  111 

place  which  "Webster  fills  in  our  history  ?  I  do 
not  propose  to  answer  this  question  by  reviewing 
the  history  of  his  time  or  by  retelling  his  biography. 
Both  history  and  biography  contain  the  answer,  yet 
neither  is  the  answer.  They  are  indeed  much  more, 
for  they  carry  with  them,  of  necessity,  everything 
concerning  the  man,  his  strength  and  his  weakness, 
his  virtues  and  his  defects,  all  the  criticism,  all  the 
differences  of  opinion  which  such  a  career  was  sure 
to  arouse  and  which  such  an  influence  upon  his 
country  and  upon  its  thought,  upon  his  own  time 
and  upon  the  future,  was  equally  sure  to  generate. 
There  is  a  place  for  all  this,  but  not  here  to-day. 
We  do  not  raise  a  monument  to  WEBSTER  upon  de 
batable  grounds,  and  thus  make  it  the  silent  cham 
pion  of  one  side  of  a  dead  controversy.  We  do  not 
set  up  his  statue  because  he  changed  his  early 
opinions  upon  the  tariff,  because  he  remained  in 
Tyler's  Cabinet  after  that  President's  quarrel  with 
the  Whigs,  or  because  he  made  upon  the  7th  of 
March  a  speech  about  which  men  have  differed 
always  and  probably  always  will  differ.  Still  less 
do  we  place  here  his  graven  image  in  memory  of 
his  failings  or  his  shortcomings.  History,  with  her 
cool  hands,  will  put  all  these  things  into  her  scales 
and  mete  out  her  measure  with  calm,  unflinching 
eyes.  But  this  is  History's  task,  not  ours,  and  we 
raise  this  statue  on  other  grounds. 


112  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

"  Not  ours  to  gauge  the  more  or  less, 
The  will's  defect,  the  blood's  excess, 
The  earthy  humors  that  oppress 

The  radiant  mind. 
His  greatness,  not  his  littleness, 
Concerns  mankind." 

To  his  greatness,  then,  we  rear  this  monument. 
In  what  does  that  greatness,  acknowledged  by  all, 
unquestioned  and  uridenied  by  any  one,  consist  ?  Is 
it  in  the  fact  that  he  held  high  office  ?  He  was  a 
brilliant  Member  of  Congress  ;  for  nineteen  years  a 
great  Senator ;  twice  Secretary  of  State.  But  "  the 
peerage  solicited  him,  not  he  the  peerage."  Tenure 
of  office  is  nothing,  no  matter  how  high  the  place. 
A  name  recorded  in  the  list  of  holders  of  high  office 
is  little  better  than  one  writ  in  water  if  the  office 
holding  be  all.  We  do  not  raise  this  statue  to  the 
Member  of  Congress,  to  the  Senator  of  the  United 
States,  or  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  but  to  Daniel 
Webster.  That  which  concerns  us  is  what  he  did 
with  these  great  places  which  were  given  to  him  ; 
for  to  him,  as  to  all  others,  they  were  mere  oppor 
tunities.  What  did  he  do  with  these  large  oppor 
tunities  ?  Still  more,  what  did  he  do  with  the 
splendid  faculties  which  nature  gave  him  ?  In  the 
answer  lies  the  greatness  which  lifts  him  out  of 
the  ranks  and  warrants  statues  to  his  memory. 

First,  then,  of  those  qualities  which  he  inherited 
from  the  strong  New  England  stock  that  gave  him 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  113 

birth,  and  which  Nature,  the  fairy  who  stands  by 
every  cradle,  poured  out  upon  him.  How  generous, 
how  lavish  she  was  to  that  "  infant  crying  in  the 
night,  that  infant  crying  for  the  light"  in  the  rough 
frontier  village  of  New  Hampshire  a  hundred  and 
eighteen  years  ago !  She  gave  him  the  strong,  un 
tainted  blood  of  a  vigorous  race  —  the  English 
Puritans  —  who  in  the  New  World  had  been  for  five 
generations  fighting  the  hard  battle  of  existence 
against  the  wilderness  and  the  savage.  His  father 
was  a  high  type  of  this  class,  a  farmer  and  a  fron 
tiersman,  a  pioneer  and  Indian  fighter,  then  a  soldier 
of  the  Revolution.  On  guard  the  night  of  Arnold's 
treason,  Washington  in  that  dark  hour  declared  that 
Captain  Webster  was  a  man  who  could  be  trusted ; 
simple  words,  but  an  order  of  merit  higher  and  more 
precious  than  any  glowing  ribbon  or  shining  star. 
So  fathered  and  so  descended,  the  child  was  endowed 
with  physical  attributes  at  once  rare  and  inestimable. 
When  developed  into  manhood  he  was  of  command 
ing  stature  and  seemed  always  even  larger  and  taller 
than  he  really  was.  Strong,  massive,  and  hand 
some,  he  stood  before  his  fellow-men  looking  upon 
them  with  wonderful  eyes,  if  we  may  judge  from  all 
that  those  who  saw  him  tell  us.  "Dull  anthracite 
furnaces  under  overhanging  brows,  waiting  only  to 
be  blown/'  says  Carlyle ;  and  those  deep-set,  glowing 
eyes  pursue  us  still  in  all  that  we  read  of  Webster, 


114  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

just  as  they  seemed  to  haunt  every  one  who  looked 
upon  them  in  life.  When  in  a  burst  of  passion  or  of 
solemn  eloquence  he  fixed  his  eyes  upon  his  hearers, 
each  man  in  a  vast  audience  felt  that  the  burning 
glance  rested  upon  him  alone  and  that  there  was  no 
escape.  Above  the  eyes  were  the  high,  broad  brow 
and  the  great  leonine  head ;  below  them  the  massive 
jaw  and  the  firm  mouth  "  accurately  closed."  All 
was  in  keeping.  No  one  could  see  him  and  not  be 
impressed.  The  English  navvy  with  his  "  There 
goes  a  king/'  Sydney  Smith,  who  compared  Webster 
to  "  a  walking  cathedral/'  and  the  great  Scotchman, 
harsh  in  judgment  and  grudging  of  praise,  who  set 
him  down  as  a  "  Parliamentary  Hercules/'  all  alike 
felt  the  subduing  force  of  that  personal  presence. 
Look  upon  some  of  the  daguerreotypes  taken  of  him 
in  his  old  age,  when  the  end  was  near.  I  think  the 
face  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary,  in  its  dark 
power  and  tragic  sadness,  of  all  the  heads  which 
any  form  of  human  portraiture  has  preserved.  So 
imposing  was  he  that  when  he  rose  to  speak,  even 
on  the  most  unimportant  occasions,  he  looked,  as 
Parton  says,  like  "  Jupiter  in  a  yellow  waistcoat," 
and  even  if  he  uttered  nothing  but  commonplaces,  or 
if  he  merely  sat  still,  such  was  his  "  might  and 
majesty,"  that  all  who  listened  felt  that  every 
phrase  was  charged  with  deep  and  solemn  meaning, 
and  all  who  gazed  at  him  were  awed  and  impressed. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  115 

Add  to  all  this  a  voice  of  great  compass,  with  deep 
organ  tones,  and  we  have  an  assemblage  of  physical 
gifts  concentrated  in  this  one  man  which  would  have 
sufficed  to  make  even  common  abilities  seem  splendid. 
But  the  abilities  were  far  from  common.  The  in 
tellect  within  answered  to  the  outward  vesture. 
Very  early  does  it  appear,  when  we  hear  of  "  Web 
ster's  boy"  lifted  upon  a  stone  wall  to  read  or 
recite  to  the  teamsters  stopping  to  water  their  horses 
near  the  Webster  farm.  They  were  a  rough,  hardy 
set,  but  there  was  something  in  the  child  with  the 
large  dark  eyes  that  held  them  and  made  them 
listen.  And  the  father,  gallant  and  quite  pathetic 
soul,  with  a  dumb  and  very  manifest  love  of  higher 
things,  resolved  that  this  boy  should  have  all  the 
advantages  which  had  been  denied  to  himself.  Like 
the  Scottish  peasants,  who  toiled  and  moiled  and 
pinched  and  saved  that  their  boy  might  go  to  the 
university  to  cultivate  learning  on  a  little  oatmeal, 
so  with  many  silent  sacrifices  Ebenezer  Webster  sent 
his  son  to  school  and  college  and  gave  him  every  op 
portunity  the  little  State  afforded.  The  boy  was  not 
slow  to  make  the  most  of  all  that  was  thus  opened 
to  him.  The  dormant  talents  grew  and  burgeoned 
in  the  congenial  soil.  Love  of  books  made  him  their 
reader  and  master.  Rare  powers  of  memory  and  of 
acquisition  showed  themselves ;  a  strong  imagination 
led  him  to  the  great  makers  of  verse,  and  natural 


116  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

taste  took  him  to  the  masters  of  style,  both  in  Eng 
lish  and  Latin.  When  he  passed  out  of  college 
his  capacity  for  work  brought  him  hardly  earned  pit 
tances  as  a  school-teacher,  and  then  carried  him 
through  the  toilsome,  early  stages  of  the  law.  As 
he  advanced,  the  eager  delight  of  acquisition  was 
succeeded,  as  is  ever  the  case,  by  the  passionate  de 
sire  for  expression,  and  soon  the  signs  come  of  the 
power  of  analysis,  of  the  instinct  of  lucid  statement 
at  once  so  clear  and  so  forcible  as  to  amount  to  dem 
onstration.  We  see  before  us  as  we  study  those 
early  years  the  promise  of  the  great  master  of  words 
to  whom  a  whole  nation  was  one  day  to  listen. 

And  with  all  these  gifts,  physical  and  mental,  pos 
sibly,  but  not  necessarily,  the  outcome  of  them  all, 
we  see  that  Webster  had  that  indefinable  quality 
which  for  lack  of  a  better  name  we  call  "charm." 
He  exercised  a  fascination  upon  men  and  women 
alike,  upon  old  and  young,  upon  all  who  came  in 
contact  with  him.  When  as  a  boy  he  returned  from 
the  country  fair,  his  mother  said  to  him,  "  Daniel, 
what  did  you  do  with  your  quarter?"  "Spent  it." 
"  Ezekiel,  what  did  you  do  with  yours  ?  "  "  Lent  it 
to  Daniel."  As  with  the  elder  brother  then,  so  it 
was  through  life.  Webster  strode  along  the  path 
way  of  his  great  career  in  solemn  state,  and  there 
were  always  people  about  him  ready  to  lend  to  him 
and  to  give  to  him ;  not  money,  merely,  but  love  and 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  117 

loyalty  and  service,  ungrudging  and  unreasoning, 
without  either  question  or  hope  of  reward.  A  won 
derful  power  this,  as  impalpable  as  the  tints  of  the 
rainbow,  and  yet  as  certain  as  the  sun  which  paints 
the  colors  on  the  clouds  and  makes  all  mankind  look 
toward  them  for  the  bow  of  hope  and  promise. 

So  he  went  on  and  up  from  the  college,  the  school- 
house,  and  the  country  jury,  until  he  stood  at  the 
head  of  the  American  bar  before  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  nation.  On  and  up  he  went,  from  the  early 
florid  orations  of  youth  until  he  became  the  first 
orator  of  his  time,  without  superior  or  rival.  He 
frightened  and  disappointed  his  father  by  refusing 
the  safe  harbor  of  a  clerk  of  court,  and  strode  on 
ward  and  upward  until  he  stood  at  the  head  of  the 
Senate  and  directed  from  the  State  Department  the 
foreign  policy  of  his  country.  Up  and  on  from 
the  farmhouse  and  the  schoolhouse,  from  the  stone 
wall  whence  he  read  to  the  rude  audience  of  team 
sters,  to  the  days  when  thousands  hung  upon  his 
words,  when  he  created  public  opinion  and  shaped 
the  political  thought  of  his  nation.  What  a  trium 
phant  progress  it  was,  and  of  it  all  what  now  remains 
to  make  men  say  fifty  years  after  his  death  that  he 
merits  not  only  a  statue  but  lasting  remembrance  ? 
Is  it  to  be  found  in  his  success  as  a  great  advocate 
and  lawyer,  the  acknowledged  head  of  his  profession  ? 
There  is  nothing  which  demands  or  calls  forth  greater 


118  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

intellectual  powers  or  larger  mental  resources  than 
the  highest  success  at  the  bar,  and  yet  no  reputation 
is  more  evanescent.  The  decisions  of  judges  remain 
and  become  part  of  the  law  of  the  land,  lasting 
monuments  of  the  learning  and  the  thought  which 
brought  them  forth.  But  the  arguments  which  en 
lightened  courts,  which  swayed  juries,  upon  which 
public  attention  was  fixed  in  admiration,  fade  almost 
in  the  hour,  while  the  brilliant  lawyer  who  uttered 
them  soon  becomes  a  tradition  and  a  memory. 

We  must  look  beyond  his  triumphs  at  the  bar  to 
find  the  Webster  of  history.  Beyond  his  work  as  a 
lawmaker,  also,  for,  although  he  had  a  lion's  share 
in  the  legislation  of  his  time,  it  is  not  as  a  construc 
tive  statesman  that  he  lives  for  us  to-day.  In  the 
first  rank  as  a  lawmaker  and  as  a  lawyer,  something 
very  great  must  remain  behind  if  we  can  readily  and 
justly  set  aside  such  claims  as  these  and  say  the 
highest  remembrance  rests  on  other  grounds.  Yet 
such  is  the  case ;  and  the  first,  but  the  lesser,  of  these 
other  grounds  is  his  power  of  speech.  Eminent  as  a 
legislator,  still  more  distinguished  as  a  lawyer,  Web 
ster  was  supreme  as  an  orator.  I  had  occasion  some 
years  ago  to  make  a  very  careful  study  of  Webster's 
speeches  and  orations.  I  read  with  them,  and  in 
strict  comparison,  all  that  was  best  in  Greek,  Latin, 
French,  and  English  oratory,  and  all  that  is  best  and 
finest  —  I  do  not  say  all  that  is  fine  and  good  —  is  to 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  119 

be  found  in  those  four  languages.  Webster  stood 
the  comparison  without  need  of  deduction  or 
apology.  I  do  not  think  that  I  am  influenced  by 
national  feeling,  for  my  object  was  to  exclude  the 
historical  as  well  as  the  personal  valuation,  and  to 
reach  a  real  estimate.  When  all  was  done,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  Webster  was  unequalled.  I  am  sure  that 
he  is  unsurpassed  as  an  orator.  There  was  no  need 
for  him  to  put  pebbles  in  his  mouth  to  cure  stammer 
ing,  or  to  rehearse  his  speeches  on  the  seashore  in 
conflict  with  the  noise  of  the  waves.  He  had  from 
the  hand  of  nature  all  the  graces  of  person  and 
presence,  of  voice  and  delivery,  which  the  most 
exacting  critic  could  demand,  and  these  natural  gifts 
were  trained,  enhanced,  and  perfected  by  years  of 
practice  in  the  Senate,  the  court  room,  and  before 
the  people.  In  what  he  said  he  always  had  distinc 
tion  —  rarest  of  qualities  —  and  he  had  also  the 
great  manner,  just  as  Milton  has  it  in  verse.  To 
lucid  statement,  to  that  simplicity  in  discussion 
which  modern  times  demand  for  practical  questions, 
to  nervous  force,  he  added,  at  his  best,  wealth  of 
imagery,  richness  of  diction,  humor,  and  pathos,  all 
combined  with  the  power  of  soaring  on  easy  wing  to 
the  loftiest  flights  of  eloquence.  Above  all,  he  had 
that  highest  quality,  the  "  o-TrovSaidrTp "  or  high 
and  excellent  seriousness  which  Aristotle  sets  down 
as  one  of  the  supreme  virtues  of  poetry  and  with- 


120  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

out  which   neither  oratory   nor   poetry   can  attain 
supremacy. 

Charles  Fox  was  the  author  of  the  famous  apho 
rism  that  "  no  good  speech  ever  read  well."  This  is 
the  declaration  in  epigrammatic  form  that  the  speech 
which  is  prepared  like  an  essay  and  read  or  recited, 
which,  in  other  words,  is  literature  before  it  is 
oratory,  is  not  thoroughly  good ;  and  of  the  sound 
ness  of  the  doctrine  there  can  be,  I  think,  no  doubt. 
But  this  proposition  is  not  without  its  dangers. 
Charles  Fox  lived  up  to  his  own  principle.  He  was, 
in  my  opinion,  the  greatest  of  English  orators  at  the 
moment  of  speech,  but  he  is  little  read  and  seldom 
quoted  now.  What  he  said  has  faded  from  the 
minds  of  men  despite  its  enchanting,  its  enormous 
effect  at  the  moment.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
speech  which  is  literature  before  it  is  spoken  is 
ineffective  or  only  partially  effective  at  the  moment, 
and  if  it  is  read  afterwards,  however  much  we  may 
enjoy  the  essay,  we  never  mistake  it  for  the  genuine 
eloquence  of  the  spoken  word.  Macaulay  is  an  ex 
ample  of  this  latter  class,  as  Fox  is  of  the  former. 
Macaulay's  speeches  are  essays,  eloquent  and  rhetor 
ical,  but  still  essays  ;  literature,  and  not  speeches.  He 
was  listened  to  with  interest  and  delight,  but  he  was 
not  a  great  parliamentary  debater  or  speaker.  The 
highest  oratory,  therefore,  must  combine  in  exact 
balance  the  living  force  and  freshness  of  the  spoken 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  121 

word  with  the  literary  qualities  which  alone  ensure 
endurance.  The  best  examples  of  this  perfection 
are  to  be  found  in  the  world  of  imagination,  in  the 
two  speeches  of  Brutus  and  Mark  Antony  in  the 
play  of  Julius  Caesar.  They  are  speeches  and 
nothing  else,  —  one  cool,  stately,  reasonable ;  the 
other  a  passionate,  revolutionary  appeal,  hot  from 
the  heart  and  pouring  from  the  lips  with  unpremedi 
tated  art,  and  yet  they  both  have  the  literary 
quality,  absolutely  supreme  in  this  instance,  because 
Shakespeare  wrote  them. 

It  is  not  the  preparation  or  even  the  writing  out 
beforehand,  therefore,  which  makes  a  speech  into  an 
essay,  for  these  things  can  both  be  done  without 
detracting  from  the  spontaneity,  without  dulling  the 
sound  of  the  voice  which  the  wholly  great  speech 
must  have,  even  on  the  printed  page.  The  speech 
loses  when  the  literary  quality  becomes  predominant, 
and  absolute  success  as  high  as  it  is  rare  comes  only 
from  the  nice  balance  of  the  two  essential  ingredients. 
You  find  this  balance,  this  combination,  in  Demos 
thenes  and  Isocrates,  although  I  venture  to  think 
that  those  two  great  masters  lean,  if  at  all,  too  much 
to  the  literary  side.  In  Cicero,  although  in  matter 
and  manner  the  best  judges  would  rank  him  below 
the  Greek  masters,  the  combination  is  quite  perfect. 
One  of  his  most  famous  speeches,  it  is  said,  was 
never  delivered  at  all,  and  none  the  less  it  is  a 


122  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

speech  and  nothing  else,  instinct  with  life  and  yet 
with  the  impalpable  literary  feeling  all  through  it, 
the  perfect  production  of  a  very  beautiful  and  subtle 
art.  Among  English  orators  Burke  undoubtedly 
comes  nearest  to  the  union  of  the  two  qualities,  and 
while  the  words  of  Fox  and  Pitt  remain  unread  and 
unquoted,  except  by  students,  Burke' s  gorgeous  sen 
tences  are  recited  and  repeated  by  successive  genera 
tions.  Yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  Burke  erred  on 
the  literary  side,  and  we  find  the  proof  of  it  in  the 
fact  that  he  often  spoke  to  empty  benches,  and  that 
Goldsmith  could  say  of  him : 

4 « Too  deep  for  his  hearers  still  went  on  refining, 
And  thought  of  convincing  while  they  thought  of  dining." 

Burke  was  a  literary  man  as  well  as  an  orator 
and  a  statesman.  Webster  was  not  a  literary  man 
at  all.  He  never  wrote  books  or  essays,  although,  in 
Dr.  Johnson's  phrase,  he  had  literature  and  loved  it. 
He  was  an  orator,  pure  and  simple ;  his  speeches, 
good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  are  speeches  —  never  essays 
or  anything  but  speeches  —  and  yet  upon  all  alike 
is  the  literary  touch.  In  all  is  the  fine  literary 
quality,  always  felt,  never  seen,  ever  present,  never 
obtrusive.  He  had  the  combination  of  Shakespeare's 
Brutus  or  Antony,  of  Demosthenes  or  Cicero,  and 
when  he  rose  to  his  greatest  heights  he  reached 
a  place  beyond  the  fear  of  rivalry. 

Would  you  have  a  practical  proof  and  exhibition 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  123 

of  this  fact,  turn  to  any  serious  and  large  debate 
in  Congress,  and  you  will  find  Webster  continually 
quoted,  as  he  is  in  every  session,  quoted  twenty 
times  as  often  as  any  other  public  man  in  our  his 
tory.  He  said  many  profound,  many  luminous,  many 
suggestive  things ;  he  was  an  authority  on  many 
policies  and  on  the  interpretation  of  the  Constitu 
tion.  But  there  had  been  others  of  whom  all  this 
might  be  said ;  there  were  kings  before  Agamemnon, 
but  they  are  rarely  quoted,  while  Webster  is  quoted 
constantly.  He  had  strong  competitors  in  his  own 
day  and  in  his  own  field,  able,  acute,  and  brilliant 
men.  He  rose  superior  to  them,  I  think,  in  his  life 
time,  but  now  that  they  are  all  dead  Webster  is 
familiar  to  hundreds  to  whom  his  rivals  are  little 
more  than  names.  So  far  as  familiarity  in  the 
mouths  of  men  goes,  it  is  Eclipse  first  and  the  rest 
nowhere.  It  is  the  rare  combination  of  speech  and 
literature ;  it  is  the  literary  quality,  the  literary 
savor,  which  keeps  what  Webster  said  fresh,  strong, 
and  living.  When  we  open  the  volumes  of  his 
speeches  it  is  not  like  unrolling  the  wrappings  of  an 
Egyptian  mummy,  to  find  within  a  dried  and  shriv 
elled  form,  a  faint  perfume  alone  surviving  to  recall 
faintly  the  vanished  days,  as  when 

"  Some  queen,  long  dead,  was  young." 
Rather  it  is  like  the  opening  of  Charlemagne's  tomb, 
when  his  imperial  successor  started  back  before  the 


124  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

enthroned  figure  of  the  great  emperor  looking  out 
upon  him,  instinct  with  life  under  the  red  glare  of 
the  torches. 

Let  us  apply  another  and  surer  test.  How  many 
speeches  to  a  jury  in  a  criminal  trial  possessing 
neither  political  nor  public  interest  survive  in  fresh 
remembrance  seventy  years  after  their  delivery  ? 
I  confess  I  can  think  of  no  jury  speeches  of  any 
kind  which  stand  this  ordeal  except,  in  a  limited 
way,  some  speeches  of  Erskine,  and  those  all  have 
the  advantage  of  historical  significance,  dealing  as 
they  do  with  constitutional  and  political  questions 
of  great  moment.  But  there  is  one  of  Webster's 
speeches  to  a  jury  which  lives  to-day,  and  no  more 
crucial  test  could  be  applied  than  the  accomplishment 
of  such  a  feat.  The  White  murder  case  was  simply  a 
criminal  trial,  without  a  vestige  of  historical,  polit 
ical,  or  general  public  interest.  Yet  Webster's  speech 
for  the  prosecution  has  been  read  and  recited  until 
well  nigh  hackneyed.  It  is  in  readers  and  manuals, 
and  is  still  declaimed  by  schoolboys.  Some  of  its 
phrases  are  familiar  quotations  and  have  passed  into 
general  speech.  Let  me  recall  a  single  passage : 

"  He  has  done  the  murder.  No  eye  has  seen  him  ; 
no  ear  has  heard  him.  The  secret  is  his  own,  and 
it  is  safe. 

"  Ah,  gentlemen,  that  was  a  dreadful  mistake. 
Such  a  secret  can  be  safe  nowhere.  The  whole 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  125 

creation  of  God  has  neither  nook  nor  corner  where 
the  guilty  can  bestow  it  and  say  it  is  safe.  ...  A 
thousand  eyes  turn  at  once  to  explore  every  man, 
everything,  every  circumstance  connected  with  the 
time  and  place ;  a  thousand  ears  catch  every  whis 
per;  a  thousand  excited  minds  intensely  dwell  on 
the  scene,  shedding  all  their  light,  and  ready  to 
kindle  the  slightest  circumstance  into  a  blaze  of 
discovery.  Meantime  the  guilty  soul  cannot  keep 
its  own  secret.  It  is  false  to  itself;  or,  rather,  it 
feels  an  irresistible  impulse  of  conscience  to  be  true 
to  itself.  It  labors  under  its  guilty  possession,  and 
knows  not  what  to  do  with  it.  The  human  heart 
was  not  made  for  the  residence  of  such  an  inhab 
itant.  It  finds  itself  preyed  on  by  a  torment  which 
it  dares  not  acknowledge  to  God  or  man.  A  vulture 
is  devouring  it,  and  it  can  ask  no  sympathy  or  assist 
ance  either  from  heaven  or  earth.  The  secret  which 
the  murderer  possesses  soon  comes  to  possess  him, 
and,  like  the  evil  spirits  of  which  we  read,  it  over 
comes  him  and  leads  him  whithersoever  it  will. 
He  feels  it  beating  at  his  heart,  rising  to  his  throat, 
and  demanding  disclosure.  He  thinks  the  whole 
world  sees  it  in  his  face,  reads  it  in  his  eyes,  and 
almost  hears  its  workings  in  the  very  silence  of  his 
thoughts.  It  has  become  his  master.  It  betrays  his 
discretion,  it  breaks  down  his  courage,  it  conquers 
his  prudence.  When  suspicions  from  without  begin 


126  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

to  embarrass  him  and  the  net  of  circumstance  to 
entangle  him,  the  fatal  secret  struggles  with  still 
greater  violence  to  burst  forth.  It  must  be  con 
fessed  ;  it  will  be  confessed.  There  is  no  refuge 
from  confession  but  suicide,  and  suicide  is  con 
fession." 

Those  are  words  spoken  to  men,  not  written  for 
them.  It  is  a  speech  and  nothing  else,  and  yet  we 
feel  all  through  it  the  literary  value  and  quality  which 
make  it  imperishable.  Take  another  example.  When 
Webster  stood  one  summer  morning  on  the  ramparts 
of  Quebec  and  heard  the  sound  of  drums  and  saw 
the  English  troops  on  parade,  the  thought  of  Eng 
land's  vast  world  empire  came  strongly  to  his  mind. 
The  thought  was  very  natural  under  the  circum 
stances,  not  at  all  remarkable  nor  in  the  least 
original.  Some  years  later,  in  a  speech  in  the  Sen 
ate,  he  put  his  thought  into  words,  and  this,  as 
every  one  knows,  is  the  way  he  did  it:  "  A  power 
which  has  dotted  over  the  surface  of  the  whole 
globe  with  her  possessions  and  military  posts,  whose 
morning  drum-beat,  following  the  sun  and  keeping 
company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  with  one 
continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs 
of  England." 

The  sentence  has  followed  the  drum-beat  round 
the  world  and  has  been  repeated  in  England  and  in 
the  antipodes  by  men  who  never  heard  of  Webster 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  127 

and  probably  did  not  know  that  this  splendid  de 
scription  of  the  British  Empire  was  due  to  an 
American.  It  is  not  the  thought  which  has  carried 
these  words  so  far  through  time  and  space.  It  is 
the  beauty  of  the  imagery  and  the  magic  of  the 
style.  Let  me  take  one  more  very  simple  example 
of  the  quality  which  distinguishes  Webster's  speeches 
above  those  of  others,  which  makes  his  words  and 
serious  thoughts  live  on  when  others,  equally  weighty 
and  serious,  perhaps,  sleep  or  die.  In  his  first 
Bunker  Hill  oration  he  apostrophized  the  monu 
ment,  just  as  any  one  else  might  have  tried  to  do, 
and  this  is  what  he  said :  "  Let  it  rise,  let  it  rise 
till  it  meet  the  sun  in  his  coming:  let  the  earliest 
light  of  morning  gild  it,  and  parting  day  linger  and 
play  on  its  summit." 

Here  the  thought  is  nothing,  the  style  every 
thing.  No  one  can  repeat  those  words  and  be  deaf 
to  their  music  or  insensible  to  the  rhythm  and 
beauty  of  the  prose  with  the  Saxon  words  relieved 
just  sufficiently  by  the  Latin  derivatives.  The  ease 
with  which  it  is  done  may  be  due  to  training,  but 
the  ability  to  do  it  comes  from  natural  gifts  which, 
as  Goethe  says,  "  we  value  more  as  we  get  older 
because  they  cannot  be  stuck  on."  Possibly  to 
some  people  it  may  seem  very  simple  to  utter  such  a 
sentence  as  I  have  quoted.  To  them  I  can  only 
repeat  what  Scott  says  somewhere  about  Swift's 


128  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

style,  perhaps  the  purest  and  strongest  we  have  in 
the  language.  "  Swift's  style/'  said  Scott,  "  seems 
so  simple  that  one  would  think  any  child  might 
write  like  him,  and  yet  if  we  try  we  find  to  our 
despair  that  it  is  impossible." 

Such,  then,  were  the  qualities  which  in  their  per 
fect  combination  put  Webster  among  the  very  few 
who  stand  forth  as  the  world's  greatest  orators.  In 
this  age  of  ours  when  the  tendency  is  to  overpraise 
commonplace  work,  to  mistake  notoriety  for  fame 
and  advertisement  for  reputation,  it  is  of  inestimable 
worth  to  a  people  to  have  as  one  of  their  own  pos 
sessions  such  a  master  of  speech,  such  a  standard  of 
distinction  and  of  real  excellence  as  we  find  in 
Webster.  Such  an  orator  deserves  a  statue. 

But  there  is  yet  another  ground,  deeper  and  more 
serious  than  this.  Webster  deserves  a  statue  for 
what  he  represented,  for  the  message  he  delivered, 
and  for  that  for  which  he  still  stands  and  will 
always  stand  before  his  countrymen  and  in  the  cold, 
clear  light  of  history.  He  was  born  just  at  the  end 
of  the  war  of  the  Kevolution,  when  the  country  was 
entering  upon  the  period  of  disintegration  and  impo 
tence  known  as  that  of  the  Confederation.  He  was 
too  young  to  understand  and  to  feel  those  bitter 
years  of  struggle  and  decline  which  culminated  in 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  But  the  first 
impressions  of  his  boyhood  must  have  been  of  the 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  129 

prosperity,  strength,  and  honor  which  came  from 
the  new  instrument  of  government  and  from  the 
better  union  of  the  States.  His  father  followed  his 
old  chief  in  politics  as  he  had  in  the  field,  and  Web 
ster  grew  up  a  Federalist,  a  supporter  of  Washing 
ton,  Hamilton,  and  Adams,  and  of  the  leaders  of 
their  party.  As  he  came  to  manhood  he  saw  the 
first  assault  upon  the  national  principle  in  the  Vir 
ginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions.  He  had  entered 
public  life  when  the  second  attack  came  in  the 
movement  which  ended  with  the  Hartford  conven 
tion,  and  with  which,  New  England  Federalist  as  he 
was,  he  could  feel  no  sympathy.  Again  fifteen 
years  passed  and  the  third  assault  was  delivered  in 
the  nullification  doctrines  of  South  Carolina. 

Webster  was  then  at  the  zenith  of  his  powers,  and 
he  came  forward  as  the  defender  of  the  Constitution. 
In  the  reply  to  Hayne  he  reached  the  highest  point 
in  parliamentary  oratory  and  left  all  rivals  far  be 
hind.  He  argued  his  case  with  consummate  skill,  both 
legally  and  historically.  But  he  did  far  more  than 
this.  He  was  not  merely  the  great  orator  defending 
the  Constitution,  he  was  the  champion  of  the  national 
principle.  Whether  the  Constitution  was  at  the  out 
set  an  experiment  or  not,  whether  it  was  a  contract 
from  which  each  or  all  of  the  signatories  could  with 
draw  at  will,  was  secondary.  The  great  fact  was 
that  the  Constitution  had  done  its  work.  It  had 


130  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

made  a  nation.  Webster  stood  forth  in  the  Senate 
and  before  the  country  as  the  exponent  of  that  fact 
and  as  the  defender  of  the  nation's  life  against  the  at 
tacks  of  separatism.  This  was  his  message  to  his 
time.  This  was  his  true  mission.  In  that  cause  he 
spoke  as  none  had  ever  spoken  before  and  with  a 
splendor  of  eloquence  and  a  force  of  argument  to 
which  no  one  else  could  attain. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  for  an  instant  that  Web 
ster  discovered  the  fact  that  the  Constitution  had 
made  a  nation  or  that  he  first  and  alone  proclaimed 
a  new  creed  to  an  unthinking  generation.  His  ser 
vice  was  equally  great,  but  widely  different  from  this. 
The  great  mass  of  the  American  people  felt  dumbly, 
dimly  perhaps,  but  none  the  less  deeply  and  surely, 
that  they  had  made  a  nation  some  day  to  be  a  great 
nation,  and  they  meant  to  remain  such  and  not  sink 
into  divided  and  petty  republics.  This  profound  feel 
ing  of  the  popular  heart  Webster  not  only  represented, 
but  put  into  words.  No  slight  service  this,  if  rightly 
considered ;  no  little  marvel  this  capacity  to  change 
thought  into  speech,  to  give  expression  to  the  feelings 
and  hopes  of  a  people  and  crystallize  them  forever  in 
words  fit  for  such  a  use.  To  this  power,  indeed,  we 
owe  a  large  part  of  the  world's  greatest  literature. 
The  myths  and  legends  of  Greece  were  of  no  one 
man's  invention.  They  were  children  of  the  popular 
imaginings  —  vague,  varying  —  floating  hither  and 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  131 

thither,  like  the  mists  of  the  mountains.  But  Homer 
touched  them,  and  they  started  up  into  a  beautiful, 
immortal  life  to  delight  and  charm  untold  generations. 
^Eschylus  and  Sophocles  put  them  upon  the  stage,  and 
they  became  types  of  the  sorrows  of  humanity  and  of 
the  struggle  of  man  with  fate.  The  Sagas  of  the  far 
north,  confused  and  diffuse  but  full  of  poetry  and 
imagination,  slumbered  until  the  Minnesingers  wove 
them  into  the  Niebelungen  Lied,  and  again  until  a 
great  composer  set  them  before  our  eyes,  so  that  all 
men  could  see  their  beauty  and  pathos  and  read  their 
deeper  meanings.  Sir  Thomas  Mallory  rescued  the 
Arthurian  legends  from  chaos,  and  in  our  own  day  a 
great  poet  has  turned  them  into  forms  which  make 
their  beauty  clear  to  the  world.  Thus  popular  imag 
inings,  dumb  for  the  most  part,  finding  at  best  only 
a  rude  expression,  have  been  touched  by  the  hand  of 
genius  and  live  forever. 

So  in  politics  Jefferson  embodied  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  the  feelings  of  the  American 
people  and  sounded  to  the  world  the  first  note  in  the 
great  march  of  Democracy,  which  then  began.  The 
Marseillaise,  in  words  and  music,  burned  with  the 
spirit  of  the  French  Revolution  and  inspired  the 
armies  which  swept  over  Europe.  Thus  Webster 
gave  form  and  expression,  at  once  noble  and  moving, 
to  the  national  sentiment  of  his  people.  In  what  he 
said  men  saw  clearly  what  they  themselves  thought, 


132  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

but  which  they  could  not  express.  That  sentiment 
grew  and  strengthened  with  every  hour,  when  men 
had  only  to  repeat  his  words,  in  order  to  proclaim 
the  creed  in  which  they  believed ;  and  after  he  was 
dead  Webster  was  heard  again  in  the  deep  roar  of  the 
Union  guns  from  Sumter  to  Appomattox.  His  mes 
sage,  delivered  as  he  alone  could  deliver  it,  was  potent 
in  inspiring  the  American  people  to  the  terrible  sacri 
fices  by  which  they  saved  the  nation  when  he  slept 
silent  in  his  grave  at  Marshfield.  Belief  in  the  Union 
and  the  Constitution,  because  they  meant  national 
greatness  and  national  life,  was  the  great  dominant 
conviction  of  Webster's  life.  It  was  part  of  his  tem 
perament.  He  loved  the  outer  world,  the  vast  ex 
panses  of  sea  and  sky,  all  that  was  large  and  unfettered 
in  nature.  So  he  admired  great  states  and  empires, 
and  had  little  faith  in  small  ones,  or  in  the  happiness 
or  worth  of  a  nation  which  has  no  history  and  which 
fears  its  fate  too  much  to  put  its  fortune  to  the  touch 
when  the  accepted  time  has  come. 

It  was  not  merely  that  as  a  statesman  he  saw  the 
misery  and  degradation  which  would  come  from  the 
breaking  of  the  Union  as  well  as  the  progressive 
disintegration  which  was  sure  to  follow,  but  the  very 
thought  of  it  came  home  to  him  with  the  sharpness 
of  a  personal  grief  which  was  almost  agonizing. 
When,  in  the  7th  of  March  speech,  he  cried  out, 
"  What  States  are  to  secede  ?  What  is  to  remain 


DANIEL   WEBSTER  133 

American  ?  What  am  I  to  be  ?"  a  political  opponent 
said  the  tone  of  the  last  question  made  him  shudder 
as  if  some  dire  calamity  was  at  hand.  The  great 
ness  of  the  United  States  filled  his  mind.  He  had 
not  the  length  of  days  accorded  to  Lord  Bathurst, 
but  the  angel  of  dreams  had  unrolled  to  him  the 
future,  and  the  vision  was  ever  before  his  eyes. 

This  passionate  love  of  his  country,  this  dream  of 
her  future,  inspired  his  greatest  efforts,  were  even 
the  chief  cause  at  the  end  of  his  life  of  his  readiness 
to  make  sacrifices  of  principle  which  would  only  have 
helped  forward  what  he  dreaded  most,  but  which  he 
believed  would  save  that  for  which  he  cared  most 
deeply.  In  a  period  when  great  forces  were  at  work 
which  in  their  inevitable  conflict  threatened  the 
existence  of  the  Union  of  States,  Webster  stands 
out  above  all  others  as  the  champion,  as  the  very 
embodiment  of  the  national  life  and  the  national 
faith.  More  than  any  other  man  of  that  time  he 
called  forth  the  sentiment  more  potent  than  all 
reasonings  which  saved  the  nation.  It  was  a  great 
work,  greatly  done,  with  all  the  resources  of  a 
powerful  intellect  and  with  an  eloquence  rarely 
heard  among  men.  We  may  put  aside  all  his  other 
achievements,  all  his  other  claims  to  remembrance, 
and  inscribe  alone  upon  the  base  of  his  statue  the 
words  uttered  in  the  Senate,  "  Liberty  and  Union, 
now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable."  That  single 


134  DANIEL   WEBSTER 

i 

sentence  recalls  all  the  noble  speeches  which  breathed 
only  the  greatness  of  the  country  and  the  prophetic 
vision  which  looked  with  undazzled  gaze  into  a  still 
greater  future.  No  other  words  are  wanted  for  a 
man  who  so  represented  and  so  expressed  the  faith 
and  hopes  of  a  nation.  His  statue  needs  no  other 
explanation  so  long  as  the  nation  he  served  and  the 
Union  he  loved  shall  last. 


THREE   GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 


FEEDEEIC   T.   GEEENHALGE1 

THE  great  mystery  of  death  is  always  the  same. 
Whether  we  behold  it  under  "  the  canopies  of  costly 
state,"  or  on  the  edge  of  a  murky  city  river,  where 
the  body  of  some  nameless  outcast  has  been  washed 
ashore,  we  bare  our  heads  and  bow  in  reverence 
before  the  poor  piece  of  earth ;  yesterday  humanity, 
to-day  in  its  stillness  the  visible  sign  of  that  over 
ruling  Power  which  alike  guides  the  universe  and 
"doth  the  ravens  feed,  yea,  providently  caters  for 
the  sparrow." 

Yet  there  are  certain  circumstances  which  heighten 
and  sharpen  the  always  solemn  lesson  of  death. 
When  a  man  is  cut  down  in  his  prime,  with  all  his 
natural  force  unabated  and  his  power  of  mind  and 
character  still  widening  and  strengthening,  the  blow 

1  Address  delivered  in  Mechanics  Hall,  Boston,  April  18,  1896,  on 
the  occasion  of  the  public  memorial  service  held  by  order  of  the 
Government  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  commemoration  of  the 
life  and  public  services  of  Frederic  T.  Greenhalge,  late  Governor  of 
the  Commonwealth. 


136     THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

strikes  us  with  peculiar  keenness.  When  that  man 
is  also  the  actual  representative  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  State,  to  whom  have  been  given  authority 
and  command,  and  in  whose  hands  has  been  placed 
the  power  to  give  or  withhold  liberty  and  life,  his 
death  touches  the  heart  and  the  imagination  alike,  and 
the  lesson  of  mortality  sounds  to  us  in  louder  and 
deeper  tones  than  ever  before.  Then  come  home  to 
us  the  familiar  words  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatist  : 

"  The  glories  of  our  blood  and  state 

Are  shadows,  not  substantial  things ; 
There  is  no  armor  against  fate  ; 
Death  lays  his  icy  hand  on  kings." 

Such  has  been  the  sad  experience  of  Massachusetts 
within  the  last  month.  For  the  first  time  in  seventy 
years,  the  psalmist's  span  of  human  life,  the  governor 
of  the  Commonwealth  has  died  in  office.  He  has 
died  with  all  his  honors  thick  upon  him,  in  the 
meridian  of  his  usefulness,  beloved  and  respected 
by  all  conditions  of  men. 

The  office  of  governor  has  always  meant  a  great 
deal  to  the  people  of  Massachusetts.  The  early 
colonial  tradition  of  the  days  when  under  a  trading 
charter  the  Puritans  built  up  an  independent  State 
has  never  been  lost.  That  tradition  taught  men  to 
hold  in  reverence  the  head  of  the  State  which  em 
bodied  for  them  and  for  their  fathers  before  them 
the  great  struggle  for  religious  and  political  indepen- 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  137 

dence  which  had  brought  them  to  the  wilderness. 
Never  since  that  time  has  the  governorship  of  the 
old  State  sunk  in  importance  or  come  to  occupy  a 
secondary  place  in  the  political  world.  To  be  gov 
ernor  of  Massachusetts  has  always  been  regarded  by 
the  people  of  the  State  as  one  of  the  highest  honors 
to  which  a  Massachusetts  man  could  attain.  The 
people  of  other  States  have  sometimes  jested  at  this 
sentiment  of  ours,  but  it  is  none  the  less  noble  and 
wise.  It  springs  from  the  just  State  pride  which 
we  all  feel,  and  has  done  much  to  give  us  the  long 
line  of  distinguished  men  who  have  filled  the  high 
place  of  our  chief  magistrate.  This  sentiment  in 
regard  to  the  office  encircles  our  governors  with 
respect  and  honor  while  they  live,  and  brings  us  in 
reverence  and  affection  to  mourn  them  when  they 
are  dead.  Thus  it  is  peculiarly  fitting  that  the  State 
should  show  to  the  memory  of  a  governor  who 
died  at  his  post,  faithful  to  the  last,  the  honor  in 
which  his  high  office  is  held  by  all  the  people  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

But  there  is  another  and  still  better  reason  than 
this  for  the  grief  of  the  State,  for  the  action  of  the 
official  representatives  of  the  people  and  for  these 
services  here  to-day.  The  governor,  in  virtue  of  his 
high  place,  is  entitled  to  these  honors,  but  the  man 
himself  has  earned  them  by  his  public  service,  his 
character,  and  his  career,  —  better  titles  to  the  re- 


138   THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

spect  and  sorrow  of  Massachusetts  than  any  which 
official  distinction  can  ever  give. 

The  old  saying,  "  Speak  naught  but  good  of  the 
dead/'  although  sometimes  abused  and  still  oftener 
sneered  at,  is,  nevertheless,  like  many  other  old 
sayings,  founded  on  the  broad  and  generous  sense 
of  mankind.  Men  who  make  their  mark  upon  their 
time  in  any  way,  and  especially  public  men,  are 
certain  to  meet  with  abundance  of  censure  and  mis 
understanding  in  the  heated  struggles  of  our  active, 
energetic  life.  "When  they  have  passed  into  history, 
when  Dr.  Johnson's  limit  of  the  hundred  years  neces 
sary  to  a  right  estimate  has  come  and  gone,  the 
historian  in  his  turn  is  sure  to  criticise  them  again 
with  entire  coolness,  and  let  us  hope  with  more 
justice  than  their  contemporaries.  It  is  only  right, 
therefore,  and  it  is  necessary  also  to  that  final  sum 
ming  up  of  history,  when  friendship  and  enmity  have 
alike  paled  their  fires,  that  there  should  be  a  moment 
in  which  all  that  is  best  in  a  man's  life  and  work 
should  be  set  forth  without  deduction,  free  alike 
from  the  sharpness  of  the  contemporary  critic  or  the 
cold  balancing  of  the  future  historian.  Such  a  mo 
ment  comes  when  we  stand  beside  the  hardly  closed 
grave,  and  when  grief  and  affection  for  the  dead  are 
uppermost  in  our  hearts. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  call  such  utterances  at  such 
a  time  eulogy,  which,  after  all,  means  merely  the 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  139 

good  word;  and  it  is  also  the  fashion  to  think  of 
eulogy  as  in  a  large  measure  conventional  and  in 
sincere.  But  this  is,  after  all,  a  shallow  and  a 
narrow  view.  Rough  manners  do  not  necessarily 
mean  rugged  honesty,  although  they  are  sometimes 
employed  to  convey  that  idea.  Eulogy  is  more 
likely  to  be  true  than  invective,  and  good  words  than 
bad.  Criticism  has  fallen  so  much  into  the  evil 
habit  of  mere  fault-finding  that  it  is  generally  under 
stood  to  mean  only  hostile  comment.  It  is  too  often 
forgotten  that  the  true  function  of  criticism  is  to 
point  out  merits  as  well  as  defects,  and  that  the 
highest  criticism  is  that  which,  unblinded  by  preju 
dice  and  fearless  in  its  blame  of  error,  shows  to  the 
world  what  is  best  in  a  book  or  in  a  man.  There 
fore  we  meet  to-day  not  to  utter  the  vain  common 
places  of  perfunctory  praise  in  memory  of  a  man 
who  loved  truth  and  hated  shams,  but  to  speak  of 
him  words  at  once  good  and  true  which  love  and 
sorrow  bring  naturally  to  our  lips. 

The  highest  praise  we  can  bestow  upon  any  man 
is  to  say  that  the  story  of  his  life,  of  what  he  said 
and  what  he  did,  of  what  he  was  and  how  he  took 
part  in  the  life  of  his  time,  is  his  best  eulogy.  We 
can  say  this  truthfully  of  our  dead  governor,  and 
it  is  enough,  for  that  simple  statement  is  in  itself 
the  full  meed  of  honor.  It  is  in  his  life  that  I 
have  found  his  best  eulogy,  for  there  his  own  works 


140   THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

praise  him  better  than  any  words  of  mine  can  possi 
bly  do. 

Frederic  Thomas  Greenhalge  was  born  in  Clitheroe, 
county  of  Lancaster,  England,  July  19,  1842,  the 
only  son  in  a  family  of  seven  children  of  William 
and  Jane  (Slater)  Greenhalge.  The  father,  William 
Greenhalge,  was  the  son  of  Thomas  Greenhalg  of 
Burnley.  The  latter  was  the  son  of  John  Greenhalg, 
who  was  the  son  of  Thomas  Greenhalg,  attorney- 
at-law  in  Preston.  The  surname  of  the  Lancaster 
family  was  apparently  spelled  without  a  final  "e," 
and  is  thoroughly  and  characteristically  English. 
William  Greenhalge,  the  father  of  the  governor,  is 
described  by  those  who  knew  him  as  a  man  of 
education,  and  possessed  also  of  much  artistic  ability. 
'Some  of  the  pictures  painted  by  him  in  early  life  are 
said  to  be  still  preserved  in  Edenfield,  where  the 
family  lived  for  a  time.  About  the  year  1847 
William  Greenhalge  joined  his  brother  Thomas  as 
a  master  engraver  to  calico  printers,  under  the  style 
of  Greenhalge  Bros.,  their  works  being  situated  at 
Stubbins  bridge,  between  Rams  Bottom  and  Eden- 
field.  The  business,  however,  did  not  prosper,  and 
in  May,  1855,  William  Greenhalge  with  his  wife 
and  family  emigrated  to  America  in  order  to  im 
prove  his  fortunes,  and  in  pursuance  of  an  engage 
ment  with  the  Merrimac  Printing  Company  at  Lowell 
to  take  the  general  management  of  the  engraving 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  141 

department  at  a  salary  of  four  hundred  pounds  per 
annum ,  and  an  increase  at  the  expiration  of  three 
years.  The  salary  was  a  high  one  for  those  days, 
and  it  shows  beyond  all  doubt  that  William  Green- 
halge  was  a  man  of  training  and  artistic  capacity, 
able  to  take  control  of  the  important  department 
of  design,  upon  which  the  success  of  print  works  so 
largely  depends. 

As  soon  as  he  had  settled  in  his  new  position  his 
children  were  sent  to  school,  and  his  only  son,  who 
was  evidently  a  precocious  lad,  early  took  high  rank 
in  his  classes.  In  the  high  school  at  Lowell  he  is  re 
called  as  the  leader  of  his  class  and  the  first  winner 
of  the  Carney  medal.  He  also  showed,  even  at  this 
early  age,  the  taste  for  literature  which  accompanied 
him  through  life,  by  establishing  a  school  review, 
edited  and  written  by  the  boys,  which  I  believe  is 
still  continued.  As  was  to  be  expected,  this  eager, 
active-minded  boy  longed  for  the  highest  education, 
and  in  the  fall  of  1859,  after  the  usual  preparation, 
he  entered  Harvard  College.  His  course  there  was 
not  without  distinction.  At  the  close  of  his  sopho 
more  year  he  was  elected  orator  of  the  "  Institute  of 
1770,"  and  subsequently  became  one  of  the  editors 
of  the  old  Harvard  Magazine. 

Love  of  learning  brought  him  to  Harvard  through 
much  hard  work  and  many  sacrifices.  But  he  was 
not  a  mere  bookworm.  He  had  then,  as  always, 


142     THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

that  sanest  of  qualities,  —  a  great  love  for  outdoor 
air  and   outdoor   sports.     His   fondness   for  sports, 
indeed,  resulted  in  an  accident  from  which  he  suffered 
for  many  years.     Those  were  the  days,  not  of  the 
football   games   which   we   know  and   which   timid 
people  denounce,  because  now  and  then  some  one  is 
hurt,  but  of  what  were  known  as  football  fights,  in 
which  there  was  very  little  football  and  a  great  deal 
of   fighting.     The  classes  faced  each  other  on  the 
Delta  with  the  football  between  them,  and  fought. 
It  was  a  rough  pastime,  in  which,  in  one  form  or 
another,  English-speaking  boys  have  always  indulged, 
and  which  has  done  the  race  a  great  deal  of  good  in 
the  long  run.    The  Duke  of  Wellington,  if  the  familiar 
tradition  may  be  believed,  thought  that  the  spirit  it 
bred  helped  him  to  win  the  battle  of  Waterloo.    Green- 
halge  at  all  events  went  in  with  his  fellows  because 
he  was  thoroughly  brave  and  healthy-minded,  and 
loved  to  taste  the  delight  of  battle  with  his  peers. 
If  he  had  not  had  that  spirit  he  would  not  have  been 
the  man  he  was,  and  it  went  with  him  through  life. 
He  had  the  ill-luck  to  be  one  of  those  who  were 
seriously  hurt.     In  a  fall  he  injured  his  back  and  suf 
fered  much  from  it  for  some  time  afterwards,  but  he 
never  complained,  and  was  always  glad  that  he  stood 
up  in  the  rough  football  fight  just  as  he  stood  up  in 
later  years  with  the  same  spirit  in  the  greater  battles 
of  professional  and  public  life. 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  143 

He  loved  his  college  life  in  all  its  phases,  but  he 
was  not  destined  to  complete  his  course  at  that  time. 
His  college  career  was  suddenly  interrupted  by  the 
death  of  his  father  in  1862,  his  junior  year  at  Har 
vard,  and  the  young  student  of  twenty  suddenly 
became  the  mainstay  and  sole  support  of  his  mother 
and  six  sisters.  Like  many  another  college  boy 
brought  sharply  face  to  face  with  the  hardest  reali 
ties  of  life,  Greenhalge  found  temporary  employment 
as  a  school-teacher  at  Chelmsford.  Subsequently  he 
was  employed  in  the  American  bolt  shop  at  Lowell, 
but  devoted  all  his  spare  time  to  the  study  of  law 
in  the  office  of  Brown  &  Alger.  While  he  was  thus 
meeting  the  responsibilities  thrust  upon  him,  the 
nation  was  engaged  in  the  mighty  struggle  of  the 
Civil  War.  To  this  Mr.  Greenhalge  could  not  remain 
indifferent.  He  had  become  a  thorough  American. 
He  hated  slavery,  and  love  of  country  was  strong 
within  him.  So  he  put  aside  all  private  interests 
and  determined  to  enter  the  army.  Unfortunately, 
his  physical  condition  at  that  time,  owing  to  the 
accident  in  college,  was  not  good,  and  the  examining 
surgeon,  to  whom  he  presented  himself,  rejected  him 
with  the  comment  that  there  were  enough  "  sick 
boys  in  the  hospitals  already."  Greenhalge' s  action 
was  characteristic  of  the  man.  Despite  the  medical 
verdict,  he  determined  to  go  to  the  front,  be  the  cost 
what  it  might.  Accordingly,  in  October  of  1863  he 


144     THKEE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

went  to  Newberne,  N.  C.,  and  was  there  placed  in 
the  commissary  department.  When  the  city  was 
attacked  in  February,  1864,  he  offered  his  services 
in  the  defence,  and  was  given  a  command  in  a  force 
of  colored  troops.  While  engaged  in  that  duty  he 
was  stricken  down  with  malarial  fever,  and  after  a 
few  weeks'  illness  was  sent  home.  This  was  his  first 
glimpse  of  the  South,  to  which  a  little  more  than 
thirty  years  later  he  was  to  return  on  another  and 
far  different  errand,  as  the  governor  of  Massachusetts, 
bearing  a  message  of  fraternity  and  good-will  to  a 
sister  State.  He  had  thrown  his  whole  energy  into 
the  Union  cause,  and  the  result  of  his  efforts  was 
bitterly  disappointing.  There  was  a  touch  of  pathos 
in  the  way  he  summed  up  his  army  experience.  "  I 
got,"  he  says,  "  neither  commission,  pension,  nor 
record,  —  nothing  but  malaria."  Yet  he  deserved 
as  much  credit  as  men  who  got  all  three,  for  he  gave 
all  he  could.  He  served  wherever  he  could  help  his 
country,  without  a  thought  of  self,  and  no  man  can 
do  more. 

After  his  recovery  from  the  illness  caused  by  his 
service  in  the  Union  army  he  renewed  his  law  studies, 
and  in  1865  he  was  admitted  to  the  Middlesex  bar, 
entering  at  once  upon  the  practice  of  his  profession. 
In  1870  he  received  from  Harvard  the  degree  of  A.B. 
Two  years  later  he  married  Miss  Nesmith,  daughter 
of  Lieutenant-Governor  John  Nesmith,  whose  name 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  145 

and  family  have  been  so  long  and  honorably  con 
nected  with  the  growth  and  upbuilding  of  Lowell 
from  the  earliest  days  of  the  city.  He  was  now 
established  in  life.  Happy  in  his  home  and  his 
marriage,  devoted  to  his  children,  earnest  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  profession,  he  was  also  respected  by 
his  fellow  townsmen  and  popular  in  society,  where 
his  charm  of  manner,  his  wit  and  humor,  his  clever 
ness  as  an  amateur  actor,  were  all  appreciated. 

Four  years  before  his  marriage  he  had  taken  his 
first  step  in  public  life.  In  1868  he  was  chosen  to 
the  common  council,  and  was  re-elected  the  following 
year.  He  also  organized  the  Grant  Campaign  Club 
in  Lowell,  and  was  its  business  manager.  It  has 
been  said  that  Mr.  Greenhalge's  friends  found  it 
difficult  at  first  to  interest  him  in  active  politics, 
although  the  larger  public  questions  always  absorbed 
his  attention.  How  true  this  may  be  I  do  not  know, 
but  his  aptitude  for  political  affairs  and  his  gift  of 
eloquent  speech  were  unmistakable,  and,  once  em 
barked  in  a  political  career,  he  soon  became  a  leader 
in  municipal  affairs.  Such  honors  and  responsibili 
ties  as  the  city  could  give  came  to  him  in  varied 
forms  for  wellnigh  a  score  of  years,  and  it  is  evident 
that  he  early  won  and  never  lost  a  high  place  in  the 
esteem  and  affection  of  the  people  of  Lowell.  From 
1871  to  1873  he  was  a  member  of  the  school  board. 
In  1874  he  was  made  a  special  justice  of  the  police 


10 


146      THREE  GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

court  at  Lowell,  and  served  for  ten  years,  when  he 
resigned.  In  1879  he  was  brought  forward  as  a 
candidate  for  mayor.  This  was  done  in  the  face  of 
the  opposition  of  many  of  the  older  politicians,  who 
feared  that  he  could  not  develop  strength  enough 
to  beat  his  opponent,  a  popular  Democratic  leader. 
His  friends  thought  otherwise,  went  vigorously  to 
work,  and  carried  Greenhalge  delegates  in  four  of 
the  six  wards.  Events  justified  their  wisdom  and 
their  belief  in  their  candidate,  for  Mr.  Greenhalge 
was  elected  by  a  handsome  majority,  and  served 
during  the  years  1880  and  1881,  showing  the  same 
independence  of  thought  and  action  which  were  so 
characteristic  of  his  whole  career.  During  his  term 
of  office  he  presided  at  the  memorial  exercises  held 
on  the  South  Common  in  memory  of  President  Gar- 
field,  and  delivered  upon  that  occasion  an  address 
which  was  much  admired  at  the  time,  and  which 
added  to  his  growing  reputation  as  a  speaker.  He 
also  drafted  the  memorial  resolutions  adopted  by  the 
city  council.  In  1881  he  was  an  unsuccessful  candi 
date  for  State  senator. 

Three  years  later  he  was  elected  a  delegate  from 
the  Lowell  district  to  the  Kepublican  national  con 
vention  at  Chicago.  It  was  there  that  I  was  first 
brought  into  close  relations  with  him.  I  had  known 
him  before,  but  only  slightly.  At  Chicago  I  came  to 
know  him  well,  and  I  have  very  seldom  met  any 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  147 

man  who  attracted  me  so  strongly  and  so  quickly. 
We  were  fighting  a  losing  fight  against  the  popular 
candidate,  because  we  thought  it  our  duty  to  do  so. 
It  was  a  trying  position,  and  I  was  at  once  impressed 
by  Mr.  Greenhalge's  good  sense,  by  his  modesty,  his 
entire  fearlessness,  and  his  indifference  to  personal 
considerations.  What  most  drew  me  to  him  was 
that  quick  sympathy  which  was  his  greatest  charm, 
and  which  was  enhanced  by  his  sense  of  humor,  the 
most  sympathetic  of  all  qualities.  As  is  well  known, 
we  were  beaten  in  the  convention ;  but  although  the 
contest  had  been  heated  and  even  bitter,  Mr.  Green- 
halge  did  not  swerve  or  vary  in  his  loyalty  to  his 
party,  or  in  the  fidelity  which  we  believed  simple 
honesty  and  good  faith  required  us  as  delegates  to 
show  to  the  brilliant  leader  whom  we  had  opposed 
and  whom  the  convention  nominated.  As  soon  as 
he  reached  home  Mr.  Greenhalge  at  once  made  a 
strong  speech  in  Lowell  in  support  of  Mr.  Elaine 
and  of  the  Republican  party,  whose  principles  and 
policies  he  believed  essential  to  the  welfare  and 
prosperity  of  the  country.  As  he  began,  so  he  went 
on,  and  gave  generously,  as  he  always  did,  of  his 
time  and  strength  to  upholding  and  advocating  the 
Republican  cause. 

In  the  year  following  the  presidential  election  he 
was  chosen  one  of  the  Lowell  Representatives  to 
the  lower  branch  of  the  State  legislature,  where  he 


148     THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

did  excellent  service.  He  was  elected,  owing  to  his 
personal  popularity,  in  a  Democratic  district,  but 
was  defeated  for  re-election  by  one  vote.  Upon 
the  occasion  of  the  semi-centennial  of  Lowell  in  1886 
he  delivered  the  historical  address,  which  added  still 
further  to  his  reputation  as  an  orator.  In  1888  he 
was  chosen  city  solicitor. 

His  successful  career  in  Lowell,  together  with  his 
popularity,  his  services  in  the  political  campaigns, 
and  his  standing  as  a  public  speaker  had  already 
marked  him  for  higher  preferment,  and  as  a  man 
fit  for  a  larger  field  of  action.  The  presidential 
campaign  of  1888  at  last  brought  the  opportunity, 
and  his  party  in  the  district  turned  to  him  as  their 
candidate  for  Congress.  The  fight  which  followed 
his  nomination  was  a  stubborn  one,  but  he  made  an 
aggressive  and  effective  canvass,  and  was  elected 
by  a  handsome  plurality. 

When  he  resigned  his  office  as  city  solicitor  in 
1889  to  go  to  Washington,  the  first  period  of  his 
life  closed.  He  was  now  to  enter  upon  the  broader 
field  of  national  politics,  and  he  came  to  it  at  a  time 
of  great  stress  and  excitement.  The  Fifty-first  Con 
gress  was  not  a  peaceful  one.  It  was  the  second  Re 
publican  Congress  since  the  days  of  Grant,  and  the 
party  majority  hung  by  a  slender  thread.  There  was 
a  great  work  to  be  done,  nothing  less  than  the  reform 
of  the  rules  and  the  restoration  to  the  majority  of 


FREDERIC   T.   GREENHALGE  149 

its  rights  and  responsibilities.  The  opening  days 
of  the  session  were  marked  by  much  turbulence,  and 
all  the  known  tactics  of  obstructive  parliamentary 
warfare  were  resorted  to  by  a  resolute  and  defiant 
opposition.  It  was  a  time  which  demanded  the  best 
resources  of  trained  and  experienced  leadership,  and 
there  seemed  to  be  but  a  slight  opening  for  a  new 
and  untried  man.  When  the  House  organized  and 
the  committees  were  announced,  Mr.  Greenhalge 
found  himself  placed  on  the  committees  on  elections, 
revision  of  the  laws,  and  reform  in  the  civil  service. 
To  the  first  of  these  committees  was  intrusted  the 
important  function  of  hearing  and  deciding  contests 
for  seats,  of  which  there  was  an  unusually  large 
number  in  that  Congress,  most  of  them  coming 
from  Southern  States.  Party  feeling  ran  high,  and 
the  debates  which  followed  the  various  reports  on 
election  cases  provoked  great  partisan  bitterness. 
To  the  work  of  this  committee  Mr.  Greenhalge 
devoted  himself  with  his  accustomed  energy  and 
ability. 

The  first  case  to  be  called  up  was  that  of  Smith 
v.  Jackson,  from  West  Virginia.  During  this  debate 
Mr.  Greenhalge  made  his  maiden  speech.  The  occa 
sion  could  not  have  been  more  happily  selected.  The 
House  was  crowded,  and  the  interest  was  keen.  His 
analysis  of  the  legal  points  involved  was  lucid  and 
convincing,  and  the  whole  speech  was  tinged  with 


150   THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

a  delicious  satire  which  caught  the  House  at  once. 
At  the  close  he  was  accorded  hearty  and  enthusiastic 
applause.  The  House  recognized  immediately  that 
he  was  a  sound  lawyer,  a  brilliant  speaker,  and  a 
strong  debater,  and  the  opinion  of  the  House  on 
these  points  is  of  the  best,  and  is  not  easily  won. 
It  was  a  triumph  for  a  first  speech.  Henceforth 
his  place  was  secure,  and  he  became  at  once  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  House.  His  reputation  thus  made, 
he  found  himself  beset  by  every  contestant  with 
demands  for  assistance.  These  appeals  he  found 
it  difficult  to  resist,  and  he  did  much  effective  work 
in  placing  these  election  controversies  before  the 
House.  The  amount  of  labor  involved  in  sifting 
evidence  in  each  case  was  immense,  but  the  reward 
came  in  the  form  of  an  established  legal  and  forensic 
reputation.  It  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  allude 
to  perhaps  his  most  eloquent  effort  while  a  member 
of  the  House,  the  speech  made  in  the  Waddill  v. 
Wise  Case.  Edmund  Waddill,  Jr.,  the  Republican 
candidate,  contested  the  seat  of  his  Democratic  op 
ponent,  who  had  been  given  the  certificate  of  election 
from  one  of  the  Virginia  districts.  It  was  clearly 
shown  in  the  evidence  that  in  three  precincts  of  one 
ward  in  the  city  of  Richmond  long  lines  of  colored 
voters  had  remained  standing  in  front  of  the  election 
booths  throughout  the  night  before  election  and  dur 
ing  the  entire  election  day  until  the  polls  were  closed, 


FKEDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  151 

in  the  vain  hope  of  being  allowed  to  cast  their 
ballots.  The  whole  question  of  the  right  to  the 
seat  turned  upon  whether  these  ballots  should  be 
counted.  In  the  course  of  his  speech  Mr.  Green- 
halge  said : 

"  Shall  the  law  be  ineffectual  ?  Shall  the  whole 
majesty  of  the  law  stand  silent,  powerless,  inactive 
as  yonder  obelisk,  or  shall  that  law  be  clothed  with 
power  and  strength  enough  to  give  to  every  man  in 
that  colored  line  the  same  rights  that  the  white 
millionaire  has  ?  Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  heard  and 
read  with  admiration  of  that  memorable  thin,  red 
line  which  repelled  the  fiery  onset  of  Napoleon  at 
Waterloo  ;  but  I  say  that  this  thin,  black  line,  stand 
ing  from  sunrise  to  sunset  in  Jackson  ward,  means 
as  much  for  human  freedom  and  civil  liberty  as  the 
memorable  thin,  red  line  at  Waterloo.  I  go  further, 
Mr.  Speaker :  I  say  that  if  this  House  does  not  do 
justice  to  every  man  in  those  lines  in  the  first,  third, 
and  fourth  precincts  of  Jackson  ward,  in  the  city  of 
Richmond,  and  count  every  vote  there  legally  ten 
dered,  then  the  flaming  lines  of  Gettysburg  were 
nothing  more  than  a  vain  and  empty  show,  and  even 
the  grand  words  of  Lincoln,  spoken  over  the  graves 
of  Gettysburg,  become  only  as  ( sounding  brass  and 
tinkling  cymbals/ ' 

The  wave  of  popular  discontent  which  engulfed 
the  party  in  power  in  1890  carried  Mr.  Greenhalge 


152      THREE  GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

down  with  it,  despite  his  personal  popularity,  and 
owing  to  his  neglect  of  his  own  interests  by  going 
out  of  his  district  to  give  generous  aid  to  other 
Republicans.  He  made  a  gallant  fight,  but  was  de 
feated  by  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  votes.  If  his 
disappointment  was  acute  at  thus  finding  himself  un 
expectedly  thrust  back  on  the  threshold  of  a  brilliant 
congressional  career,  no  sign  of  it  escaped  him.  He 
returned  cheerfully  to  the  practice  of  his  profession, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  for  a  time  he  regarded  his 
public  life  as  closed.  As  early  as  April,  1892,  in  a 
letter  to  the  chairman  of  the  congressional  committee, 
he  declined  to  have  his  name  considered  as  a  candi- 

• 

date  for  Congress  in  the  approaching  canvas. 

The  unlooked-for  and  accidental  defeat  of  the  Re 
publican  nominee  for  governor  in  1892  made  the 
selection  of  a  new  candidate  probable  in  the  succeed 
ing  year.  Several  gentlemen  were  put  forward,  and 
during  the  summer  months  of  1893  a  friendly  and 
earnest  contest  was  waged  for  the  nomination.  Some 
time  before  the  convention  assembled,  however,  it 
became  apparent  that  Mr.  Greenhalge  was  the  popu 
lar  choice,  and  the  other  candidates  withdrew.  The 
incidents  of  the  campaign  that  followed  are  still 
fresh  in  the  public  mind.  After  a  canvas  of  great 
brilliancy,  Mr.  Greenhalge  was  triumphantly  elected, 
thus  restoring  the  line  of  Republican  governors, 
which  had  been  broken  for  the  longest  period  in  the 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  153 

history  of  the  party  since  it  had  been  dominant  in 
Massachusetts,  and  on  January  4,  1894,  he  was  in 
augurated.  In  the  fall  of  1894  and  again  in  1895 
he  was  re-elected  by  heavy  majorities,  the  largest 
which  had  been  cast  for  any  governor  in  almost  a 
generation.  When  he  first  received  the  nomination, 
he  told  the  convention  that  he  accepted  it  as  the 
greatest  responsibility  of  his  life,  and  his  subsequent 
career  showed  that  this  feeling  never  left  him  for  an 
instant.  Throughout  his  administration  he  did  his 
duty  as  he  conceived  it,  without  regard  to  his  per 
sonal  interests  or  to  the  effect  of  his  acts  upon  his 
own  political  fortunes.  He  may  have  made  mistakes ; 
every  successful  man  who  does  things  worth  doing  is 
sure  to  err  at  times,  and  he  would  have  been  the  last 
man  to  claim  infallibility,  for  he  was  too  human  and 
too  manly ;  but  he  never  acted  from  a  mean  or  low 
motive,  and  he  had  a  quick  and  sound  judgment.  He 
decided  each  question  as  it  was  presented  to  him  in 
dependently  and  fearlessly,  not  infrequently  against 
the  advice  and  judgment  of  some  of  his  warm 
supporters. 

He  had  entire  courage,  physical  and  moral.  Early 
in  his  first  term  a  mob  entered  the  State  House. 
They  had  done  no  harm,  but  they  were  in  that  un 
controlled  condition  when  serious  danger  was  likely 
to  spring  up  in  an  instant.  A  mass  of  human  beings 
stricken  with  panic  or  gathered  in  a  mob,  excited  and 


154      THREE  GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

leaderless,  is  always  a  peril.  When  the  governor 
heard  that  this  crowd  was  in  the  State  House  and 
menacing  the  legislature,  he  did  not  stop  to  consider 
what  should  be  done,  but  went  out  at  once  and  looked 
disorder  so  squarely  in  the  face  that  quiet  was  re 
stored.  This  was  the  quick  instinct  of  the  high- 
spirited  man,  when  the  sudden  pressure  comes,  —  the 
two-o'clock-in-the-morning  courage  which  Napoleon 
admired.  Governor  Greenhalge  sent  no  one ;  he  went 
himself  to  meet  the  peril,  if  there  was  one,  and  at  his 
coming  the  danger  faded  and  fled. 

Courage  of  a  different  kind  he  had  also,  —  that 
moral  courage  which  makes  a  decision  among  con 
flicting  interests,  and  after  careful  consideration, 
as  he  showed  on  various  occasions.  He  did  not 
shrink  from  putting  his  veto  upon  a  measure  which 
had  a  powerful  interest  or  a  popular  cry  behind  it, 
whenever  he  thought  his  duty  to  the  State  required 
it;  the  State  sustained  him,  and  even  the  people, 
whom  he  disappointed,  in  the  end  respected  and 
trusted  him  more.  He  was  not  opinionated,  but  for 
none  of  his  more  important  acts,  when  he  came  to 
review  them  dispassionately,  did  he  experience  any 
regret.  He  was  justly  conscious  of  his  purity  of 
motive,  and  the  apologetic  attitude  was  one  he  never 
assumed.  A  conspicuous  instance  of  this  trait  ap 
peared  the  last  time  he  faced  a  Republican  conven 
tion.  He  alluded  to  several  strictures  which  had 


FKEDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  155 

been  passed  upon  him,  and  then  with  an  outburst  of 
deep  feeling  he  closed  a  brief  reference  to  his  course 
in  office  by  saying  to  the  delegates  who  had  just 
nominated  him  for  the  third  term,  "  In  the  language 
of  the  great  reformer,  so  help  me  God,  I  could  not  do 
otherwise." 

He  was  diligent  and  industrious  in  his  daily  work, 
and  never  shirked  details.  With  the  growth  of  the 
State  the  labors  of  the  Executive  have  multiplied, 
and  Governor  Greenhalge  discharged  them  all  con 
scientiously  and  faithfully.  The  work  now  incident 
to  the  office,  the  work  really  due  to  the  public,  is 
enough  to  tax  sufficiently  the  strength  and  ability  of 
any  man.  But  insensibly  there  has  grown  up  the 
habit  of  expecting  the  governor  of  Massachusetts  to 
be  present  and  to  speak  at  all  sorts  of  gatherings 
and  on  all  kinds  of  occasions,  wholly  unofficial  and 
in  no  sense  properly  pertaining  to  the  office.  These 
incessant  demands  Governor  Greenhalge  met  with 
the  generosity  which  was  so  marked  a  quality  of  his 
character.  But  the  demands  ought  never  to  have 
been  made  or  complied  with,  for  they  put  upon 
him  such  a  burden  and  so  strained  both  body  and 
mind  that  at  last  his  health  gave  way.  At  first  the 
illness  seemed  trifling.  Then  with  a  terrible  shock 
we  heard  that  he  was  dying,  and  in  a  few  days  the 
end  came.  He  died  in  his  prime,  worn  out  in  the 
public  service,  and  the  people  of  a  great  American 


156   THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

Commonwealth  watched  with  loving  sympathy  over 
his  last  hours,  and  mourned  beside  his  grave,  near 
the  busy  city  which  he  loved,  and  to  which  he  had 
come,  a  little  boy  of  English  birth,  forty  years  before. 
So  this  honorable  life  of  work  and  conflict,  of 
happiness  and  success,  closed.  The  first  thought 
that  comes  to  me  as  I  look  back  over  the  record,  is 
the  strong  race  quality  shown  by  Governor  Green- 
halge.  He  was  born  in  England.  He  was  of  ancient 
English  stock,  formed  by  the  mingling  of  Saxon  and 
Dane  many  years  before  the  "  galloping  Norman 
came."  He  was  thirteen  years  old  when  he  came  to 
Lowell,  and  all  the  strong  associations  of  his  childhood 
belonged  to  England.  Yet  no  better,  no  more  thorough 
American  ever  lived  than  he.  There  was  no  foreign 
prefix  and  no  hyphen  attached  to  his  Americanism. 
He  received  his  education  here ;  he  absorbed  the 
spirit  of  our  life  ;  he  was  full  of  patriotism ;  he  was 
for  America  against  the  world.  The  fact  is,  he  came 
from  the  old  home  of  the  English-speaking  people, 
to  find  here  the  larger  part  of  that  people  as  it 
exists  to-day ;  and  in  both  branches  the  great  race 
qualities,  forged  and  welded  through  more  than  a 
thousand  years  of  toil  and  strife,  are  the  same. 
The  differences  are  superficial,  the  identities  pro 
found.  To  a  man  like  Governor  Greenhalge,  the 
ideas,  the  beliefs,  the  habits,  the  aspirations  of  the 
great  American  democracy  appealed  more  strongly 


FREDERIC   T.    GREENHALGE  157 

than  those  of  the  land  he  had  left.  The  air  of 
America  was  more  native  to  him  than  that  of  the 
country  of  his  birth.  So  he  became  and  lived  and 
died  an  American  in  every  fibre  of  his  being,  some 
thing  always  worthy  of  remembrance  among  a  people 
proud  of  their  country  and  believing  in  its  destiny. 

One  reason  for  his  Americanism  was  that  he  was 
democratic  in  the  true  sense,  cringing  to  no  man, 
courteous  to  all.  He  was  simple  in  his  life,  devoted 
and  tender  to  wife  and  children,  a  lover  of  home,  — 
the  altar  and  shrine  of  the  race  who  read  the  Bible 
in  the  language  of  Shakespeare.  He  was  brave  and 
loyal,  —  loyal  with  that  chivalrous  loyalty  which  is 
not  too  common,  but  which  leads  a  man  like  him  to 
come  unasked  to  the  aid  of  a  friend,  and  to  give  and 
take  blows  in  a  friend's  behalf,  as  the  Black  Knight 
came  to  the  side  of  Ivanhoe  when  he  was  sore  beset. 

He  was  honest  in  word  and  deed,  and  untouched  by 
the  unwholesome  passion  for  mere  money,  which  is 
one  of  the  darkest  perils  of  these  modern  times.  He 
loved  literature  and  books  with  a  real  love  and  rever 
ence,  and  held  scholarship  in  honor,  as  it  has  always 
been  held  in  New  England,  and  I  trust  ever  will  be. 

Of  his  qualities  and  gifts  as  a  public  man  there  is 
little  need  for  me  to  speak.  They  are  known  to  you 
all,  and  are  fresh  in  your  remembrance.  The  echoes 
of  that  ready  speech,  now  flashing  with  humor  and 
satire,  now  rich  in  eloquence  and  feeling,  in  imagery 


158   THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

and  allusion,  still  sound  in  our  ears.  With  memory 
sharpened  by  sorrow,  we  all  recall  his  ability  in  ad 
ministration,  his  capacity  for  business,  his  unfailing 
charm  of  manner,  his  simple  but  strong  religious 
faith,  and  his  large  and  generous  tolerance.  These 
qualities  were  known  and  honored  of  all  men,  and 
they  had  their  reward,  not  in  the  high  offices  which 
came  to  him,  but  in  the  confidence  and  affection 
which  he  inspired. 

His  was  a  life  worth  living.  He  made  it  so  both 
for  himself  and  for  others.  He  did  a  man's  work, 
he  fought  a  man's  fight,  he  made  his  mark  upon  his 
time.  It  is  a  life  worth  studying,  not  merely  because 
it  was  an  example  of  the  rise  from  small  beginnings 
to  great  conclusions,  which  it  is  one  of  the  glories 
of  our  country  to  make  possible  for  all  men,  but 
because  it  was  a  life  of  lofty  aims,  of  high  hopes, 
of  honorable  achievement.  He  has  left  us  a  fine 
and  gracious  memory,  to  be  treasured  in  the  history 
of  the  old  State  he  served  so  well;  and  let  this 
thought  mingle  with  our  sadness  and  linger  longest 
in  our  memories.  Let  us  end  as  we  began,  with  the 
Elizabethan  poet,  no  longer  stern,  but  in  a  softer, 
tenderer  strain.  Let  us  not  forget  that  if 
"  The  garlands  wither  on  our  brow," 

it  is  also  true  that 

"  The  actions  of  the  just 
Smell  sweet  and  blossom  in  the  dust." 


THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

II 

GEOKGE  D.   KOBINSON1 

YESTERDAY  we  had  a  memorial  service  in  Boston 
for  our  Governor  who  had  died  in  office.  To-day  we 
meet  to  do  like  honor  to  one  of  his  near  predecessors. 
The  quick  succession  of  these  solemn  observances  is 
a  sad  reminder  of  the  loss  which  has  within  a  few 
months  befallen  the  Commonwealth  in  the  sudden 
death  of  two  of  her  most  trusted  and  eminent  public 
men.  Both  deserved  well  of  the  Republic,  both 
had  done  the  State  high  service,  both  had  lived 
lives  and  shown  qualities  which  were  an  honor  to 
Massachusetts. 

He  whose  memory  we  would  recall,  and  whose 
life  and  deeds  we  would  praise  here  to-day,  had 
withdrawn  himself  some  years  ago  from  the  public 
career  in  which  he  had  played  such  a  distinguished 
part.  He  had  returned  to  the  active  and  successful 

i  An  address  delivered  at  a  meeting  in  memory  of  George  Dexter 
Robinson,  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  1884-1887,  held  in  Lexington, 
Massachusetts,  his  native  town,  on  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-first 
anniversary  of  the  battle  with  the  British  at  that  place. 


160     THREE  GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

pursuit  of  his  profession,  where  he  held  a  deservedly 
high  position.  He  was  cut  down  suddenly  in  the 
fulness  of  his  strength,  both  of  body  and  mind; 
and  the  news  of  his  death  brought  deep  sorrow  to 
all  the  people  of  the  State.  His  loss  was  as  keenly 
felt  as  if  he  had  still  held  office;  for,  although  he 
had  retired  from  public  life,  the  services  he  had 
rendered,  his  high  reputation,  and  his  strong  char 
acter  made  him  in  any  sphere  or  in  any  field  of 
human  activity  a  potent  influence  and  a  pillar  of 
strength  to  the  community  in  which  he  lived. 

There  is  a  peculiar  fitness  in  coming  here  on  this 
day  to  honor  his  memory.  Not  only  is  this  the  town 
of  his  birth,  but  it  is  a  famous  and  historic  spot. 
Lexington  is  a  name  known  to  all  Americans.  When 
we  tell  the  story  of  the  long,  brave  struggle  which 
made  us  an  independent  nation,  we  begin  it  here 
where  for  the  first  time  the  minute-men  faced  the 
soldiers  of  England.  With  it  are  entwined  all 
the  memories  of  the  Revolution.  It  was  to  Lex 
ington  and  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill  that  Daniel 
Webster  pointed  first  when  he  numbered  the  glories 
of  Massachusetts.  Here  the  memories  dearest  to 
our  hearts  awaken,  and  they  are  all  American. 
They  speak  of  American  liberty,  American  courage, 
American  union  and  independence.  There  is  no 
jarring  note  anywhere.  Hence  the  peculiar  fitness 
of  which  I  have  spoken  in  our  coming  here  to  com- 


GEORGE  D.   ROBINSON  161 

memorate  the  life  and  services  of  Governor  Robinson ; 
for  he  was  not  only  a  distinguished  man,  but  he  was 
a  typical  one. 

He  was  a  true  son  of  the  soil,  an  American,  a  New 
Englander.  Here  the  Puritans  settled,  here  they 
lived  for  generations,  here  their  descendants  fought 
the  first  fight  of  the  Revolution;  and  here,  if  any 
where,  in  this  historic  American  town  we  can  learn 
from  the  life  of  one  of  its  children  what  the  result 
has  been  of  the  beliefs,  the  strivings,  the  traditions, 
of  the  people  who  founded  and  built  up  New  Eng 
land,  and  in  the  course  of  the  centuries  have  pushed 
their  way  across  the  continent.  In  the  career  and 
the  character  of  Governor  Robinson  we  have  an 
open  book,  where  we  can  read  a  story  which  will 
tell  us  what  kind  of  man  the  civilization  of  the 
English  Puritans  has  been  able  to  produce  in  this 
nineteenth  century,  after  so  many  years  of  growth 
and  battle  in  the  New  World.  Has  the  result  been 
worthy  of  the  effort  and  the  struggle  ?  Has  the  race 
advanced  and  grown  stronger  here  under  new  in 
fluences  in  its  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  Ameri 
can  existence,  or  has  it  faltered,  failed,  and  declined  ? 
These  are  questions  of  deep  moment  to  us,  children 
of  New  England  and  Massachusetts.  Let  us  turn 
to  the  life  of  the  man  whose  memory  brings  us  here 
to-day,  and  find  the  answer  there. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  the  Puritan  settlements  was 

11 


162     THREE  GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

at  Cambridge ;  and  there  a  town  sprang  up  with  its 
church  and  school-house,  and  in  a  short  time  with 
the  little  college  which  has  grown  since  then  into 
the  great  university  we  know  to-day.  As  the  years 
went  by,  more  and  more  land  was  taken  up ;  and  a 
new  settlement  was  formed  to  the  north  of  the 
college  town,  and  known  as  Cambridge  Farms. 
Thither  about  1706  came  Jonathan  Robinson  with 
his  young  wife,  Ruth.  He  was  born  in  1682,  the 
son  of  William  Robinson,  of  Cambridge,  was  a  weaver 
by  trade,  and  moved  from  his  birthplace  that  he 
might  get  a  farm  and  establish  a  home  for  his 
family.  He  became  one  of  the  leading  men  of  the 
little  settlement,  was  chosen  a  tythingman  in  1735, 
and  in  1744  was  one  of  the  committee  appointed 
to  "dignify  and  seat  ye  meeting-house,"  an  important 
social  function  in  the  early  days  of  New  England. 

He  had  six  children.  The  eldest,  Jonathan,  born 
in  1707,  married  in  his  turn,  and  had  a  son  named 
Jacob,  born  in  1739.  His  son,  also  named  Jacob,  the 
great-grandson  of  the  Cambridge  weaver,  was  born 
in  1762.  He  lived  to  a  great  age,  and  was  in  his 
turn  a  leader  in  the  town,  being  selectman  in  1805 
and  1806,  and  for  several  years  assessor.  He  had 
nine  children,  among  them  Hannah,  who  became  the 
wife  of  Charles  Tufts,  the  founder  of  Tufts  College, 
and  Charles,  the  father  of  George  D.  Robinson,  the 
iuture  governor,  who  was  born  January  20,  1834. 


GEORGE   D.   ROBINSON  163 

The  mother  of  Governor  Robinson  was  Mary  Davis, 
of  Concord,  a  lineal  descendant  of  Dolor  Davis,  one 
of  the  earliest  of  the  Plymouth  settlers,  and  the  an 
cestor  of  three  Massachusetts  governors.  The  mother 
of  Mrs.  Robinson  was  the  daughter  of  Joseph  Hos- 
mer,  who  acted  as  adjutant  in  the  fight  at  Concord 
Bridge. 

I  have  traced  this  pedigree  in  some  detail,  not  be 
cause  it  is  remarkable,  but  because  it  is  typical.  It 
is  characteristic  of  New  England,  and  represents  the 
rank  and  file  —  the  yeomanry  of  Massachusetts  — 
who  have  made  the  State  and  done  so  much  to  build 
the  nation.  How  plainly  they  come  before  us, — 
these  men  and  women  of  the  unmixed  Puritan  stock ! 
They  were  a  simple,  hard-working  folk,  tilling  the 
ground,  weaving  their  linen,  bringing  up  their  chil 
dren  in  the  fear  of  God,  governing  themselves,  filling 
in  their  turn  the  town  offices ;  while  they  never  lost 
their  hold  on  higher  things,  respecting  and  seeking 
education,  deeply  religious,  and  with  an  abiding  love 
of  home  and  country.  One  of  the  Robinson  name 
was  in  Captain  Parker's  company  on  the  19th  of 
April  at  Lexington,  and  on  the  mother's  side  we  find 
one  of  the  officers  at  Concord.  These  Puritans  came 
here  at  the  outset  to  hear  a  sermon  after  their  own 
fashion.  They  were  stern  and  often  intolerant,  but 
always  strong,  determined  men.  As  the  generations 
passed,  each  doing  its  simple  duty  in  thorough  man- 


164      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

ner,  the  Puritan  severity  softened  and  mellowed ;  but 
the  great  qualities  of  the  race  remained  unchanged, 
and  never  failed  in  war  or  peace. 

From  such  ancestry  did  George  Eobinson  come, 
and  such  were  the  traditions  he  inherited.  His 
father  was  a  farmer,  a  man  respected  in  the  town,  of 
which  he  was  many  times  selectman.  The  boy  was 
brought  up  to  the  hard  but  vigorous  life  of  a  New  Eng 
land  country  town.  His  father's  farm  lay  some  two 
miles  to  the  north  of  Lexington,  in  what  was  then  a 
somewhat  secluded  spot.  Here  the  boy  soon  began  to 
bear  his  share  of  the  responsibilities,  and  to  help  in 
the  support  of  the  family.  There  was  a  great  deal  of 
hard  work  on  the  farm,  few  leisure  hours,  not  many 
books  to  read,  and,  as  the  nearest  neighbor  was 
nearly  half  a  mile  away,  not  much  society.  But 
among  the  New  England ers,  as  among  the  lowland 
Scotch,  the  two  branches  of  the  English-speaking 
race  which  have  perhaps  contended  with  harder  con 
ditions  than  any  others,  there  was  an  ardent  love  of 
learning  and  a  belief  in  the  power  and  the  value  of 
education,  for  which  no  sacrifice  was  deemed  too 
great. 

So,  while  George  Robinson  helped  his  father  on  the 
farm,  he  managed  to  attend  the  district  school  for 
three  or  four  months  in  the  year.  He  did  well  at 
school,  and  one  who  knew  him  all  his  life  says  of 
him  :  "  What  he  was  as  a  man,  he  was  as  a  boy,  — 


GEORGE   D.   ROBINSON  165 

truthful,  sincere,  kind,  and  clean,  —  a  boy  whom 
every  one  respected  and  esteemed,  making  friends 
wherever  he  went."  The  means  at  the  command  of 
his  family  were  so  slender  that  he  put  aside  the  idea 
of  ever  getting  to  college ;  but,  toward  the  close  of 
his  career  in  the  more  advanced  schools,  his  teachers, 
who  had  a  high  opinion  of  his  capacity,  persuaded 
him  to  take  the  Harvard  examinations.  He  passed 
successfully,  and  entered  college  in  1852.  It  was  a 
hard  struggle,  and  required  many  sacrifices.  He 
went  back  and  forth  every  day  from  his  home  in 
Lexington  to  his  recitations  in  Cambridge.  He  lived 
on  a  pittance,  earned  money  by  teaching  school,  and 
by  his  rigid  economy  and  self-denial  completed  his 
college  course,  and  was  graduated  with  his  class  in 
1856.  He  took  good  rank  at  Harvard,  graduating 
high  enough  to  win  a  place  in  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa. 
He  was  popular  in  his  class,  and  a  member  of  several 
societies.  One  of  his  classmates,  Judge  Smith,  says 
of  him :  "  Whatever  he  undertook,  he  did  well  and 
so  thoroughly  that  he  did  not  have  to  go  over  it  a 
second  time.  I  should  say  that  he  never  hurried, 
and  yet  was  always  upon  time.  I  do  not  believe  he 
ever  lost  any  time  or  strength  in  worrying.  He  did 
his  best,  and  then  calmly  awaited  results." 

Thus  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with  the  world 
at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  with  no  capital  except  his 
education,  his  good  brains,  and  his  determined  will. 


166      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

His  plan  at  that  time  seems  to  have  been  to  study 
medicine ;  but,  for  immediate  support,  he  took  to 
teaching,  obtaining  a  position  as  principal  of  the 
Chicopee  High  School,  where  he  remained  for  nine 
years.  During  this  period  he  seems  to  have  kept  up 
his  studies  of  medicine.  Meantime,  on  November 
24,  1859,  he  had  married ;  but  in  1864  his  wife  died, 
and  he  soon  after  returned  to  his  father's  house, 
bringing  with  him  his  only  child,  a  boy  of  four  years. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  he  changed  his  plans,  and 
began  the  serious  study  of  the  law  in  the  office  of  his 
brother.  In  1866  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  ten 
years  after  his  graduation.  He  was  thirty-two  years 
of  age,  and  had  come  very  late  to  the  opening  of  his 
professional  career.  Once  started,  however,  he  made 
rapid  progress.  He  returned  to  Chicopee,  and  opened 
an  office  in  Cabot  Hall  Block  on  Market  Square,  a 
place  which  he  retained  until  his  comparatively  re 
cent  removal  to  Springfield.  The  thoroughness  and 
painstaking  care  with  which  he  prepared  his  cases 
soon  brought  him  a  lucrative  practice  in  a  community 
where  he  was  already  so  well  known  and  so  favorably 
regarded.  Soon  after  he  had  established  himself  in 
his  profession,  on  July  11,  1867,  he  again  married, 
his  second  wife  being  the  daughter  of  Joseph  F. 
Simonds,  of  Lexington. 

He  had   always  taken  an   interest  in  all   public 
questions ;  but  as  he  had  been  late  in  coming  to  the 


GEORGE   D.   ROBINSON  167 

bar,  so  he  was  slow  in  engaging  in  active  politics. 
His  public  career  began  with  his  election  to  the 
lower  branch  of  the  legislature  as  the  representative 
from  Chicopee  in  the  fall  of  1874.  He  was  at  that 
time  forty  years  of  age,  and  accepted  the  office  with 
genuine  reluctance.  In  his  one  year  of  service  in  the 
House  he  was  placed  on  the  Judiciary  Committee, 
serving  on  that  committee  side  by  side  with  Richard 
Olney,  Chief  Justice  Mason  of  the  Superior  Court,  the 
late  William  W.  Rice,  John  Quincy  Adams,  and  Con 
gressman  William  S.  Knox.  The  next  year  he  went 
to  the  State  Senate,  where  he  also  served  one  term, 
as  he  had  done  in  the  lower  branch.  During  his  two 
years  of  experience  in  the  State  legislature  he  quickly 
took  high  rank  as  a  debater,  and  showed  qualifications 
for  public  life  which  marked  him  for  larger  opportuni 
ties.  They  were  not  long  in  coming.  In  the  fall  of 
1876  he  was  nominated  as  the  Republican  candidate 
for  Congress  in  the  old  Eleventh  District,  so  long  and 
ably  represented  by  Henry  L.  Dawes,  which  two 
years  before  had  been  carried  by  Chester  W.  Chapin, 
the  Democratic  nominee,  by  a  plurality  of  nearly 
6,000.  Mr.  Robinson  took  the  stump  at  once,  and 
after  a  vigorous  struggle  overcame  the  large  adverse 
majority,  and  was  elected  to  the  Forty-fifth  Congress 
by  a  plurality  of  2,162.  He  was  successively  re- 
elected,  without  serious  opposition,  to  the  Forty- 
sixth,  Forty-seventh,  and  Forty-eighth  Congresses. 


168      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

He  brought  to  his  new  duties  in  Congress  the 
trained  habits  of  a  student  of  political  affairs,  boldness 
in  debate,  ingenuity,  resource,  and  a  power  of  forcible 
and  lucid  statement,  which  soon  commanded  the  at 
tention  of  the  House.  Before  the  expiration  of  his 
first  session  his  close  attention  to  the  duties  of  his 
position  both  in  the  committee  room  and  on  the  floor 
of  the  House  made  the  late  Speaker  Randall,  a  good 
judge  of  men,  predict  a  distinguished  future  for  the 
new  member  from  Massachusetts.  During  his  Con 
gressional  service  he  was  given  various  important 
committee  assignments,  including  places  on  the  Judi 
ciary  Committee  and  on  the  Committee  upon  the 
Improvement  of  the  Mississippi  River.  Mr.  Robin 
son  was  regular  in  attendance  upon  the  sessions  of 
the  House,  and  devoted  his  whole  strength  to  the 
public  business.  During  the  second  session  of  the 
Forty-fifth  Congress  he  began  to  participate  actively 
in  the  Congressional  debates.  As  a  debater,  he  was 
distinguished  by  incisiveness  of  speech  and  precision 
of  statement, —  qualities  which  made  him  a  formid 
able  antagonist.  His  familiarity  with  the  rules  also 
made  him  an  authority  in  questions  of  parliamentary 
procedure,  and  he  was  frequently  called  to  preside 
over  a  Democratic  House. 

In  the  fall  of  1882  Mr.  Robinson  was  elected  for  a 
fourth  term,  this  time  as  the  representative  from  the 
then  new  Twelfth  District.  His  place  in  Congress 


GEORGE   D.    ROBINSON  169 

was  now  an  influential  one ;  and  he  had  come  to  be 
recognized  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  New  England 
delegation  and  one  of  the  strong  men  of  the  House. 
Back  of  him  was  a  united  and  admiring  constitu 
ency.  His  Congressional  career  seemed  likely  to  be 
a  long  and  eminent  one ;  but  it  was  suddenly  termi 
nated  by  the  unanimous  demand  of  his  party  to 
lead  them  in  the  fiercest  campaign  they  had  ever 
been  called  upon  to  make  for  victory  in  the  State 
of  Massachusetts. 

In  1882  General  Butler,  supported  by  the  whole 
Democratic  party,  and  by  a  considerable  number  of 
Republicans,  who  constituted  his  personal  following, 
had  carried  the  State,  and  been  elected  Governor. 
His  administration,  by  the  course  he  chose  to  follow, 
had  aroused  deep  resentments,  and  to  the  intense 
desire  of  the  Republicans  as  a  party  to  regain  the 
State  was  added  a  great  deal  of  personal  bitterness. 
The  Republican  organization  therefore  began  its 
work  early,  for  there  was  much  to  do.  But  the  all- 
important  point  to  be  decided  was  who  should  be  the 
candidate  to  lead  the  fight  against  General  Butler. 
It  was  neither  an  easy  nor  an  inviting  task,  and  the 
prospect  of  victory  was  anything  but  certain. 

It  was  my  fortune  to  be  at  that  time  chairman  of 
the  Republican  State  Committee,  and  in  charge  of 
the  campaign.  I  had  no  personal  acquaintance  with 
Governor  Robinson,  and  knew  him  only  by  reputa- 


170      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

tion  as  a  distinguished  and  leading  member  of  Con 
gress.  It  seemed  to  me,  however,  at  the  very  start, 
on  looking  over  the  whole  field,  that  he  would  be 
our  strongest  candidate  against  General  Butler ;  but 
I  felt  that,  in  view  of  the  serious  contest  before  us, 
the  candidate  should  be  selected  by  the  well-con 
sidered  opinion  of  the  party,  and  that  it  was  not  the 
time  for  any  interference  by  the  State  Committee  in 
regard  to  the  nomination.  I  was,  therefore,  very 
careful  to  say  nothing  whatever  as  to  my  own  views 
in  regard  to  candidates.  As  time  went  on,  several 
distinguished  Kepublicans  were  suggested  for  the 
nomination;  but  in  each  case  a  refusal  to  run  fol 
lowed.  Finally,  party  opinion  settled  down  on  Mr. 
Henry  L.  Pierce ;  and,  as  the  date  fixed  for  the  con 
vention  approached,  it  was  clear  that  he  would  be 
nominated  with  practical  unanimity.  That  this 
would  be  the  result  of  the  convention  was  generally 
understood,  and  was  accepted  on  all  sides. 

On  the  day  before  the  convention  Mr.  Pierce  sent 
for  me,  and  told  me  that  he  could  not  be  a  candidate. 
His  sudden  withdrawal  at  the  last  moment  was  a 
very  serious  matter,  when  the  all-important  question 
of  the  nomination  was  thought  to  have  been  con 
clusively  settled.  It  threatened  to  throw  everything 
into  confusion,  and  start  us  most  unfortunately  in 
the  severe  struggle  which  we  knew  was  at  hand.  I 
remember  very  well  the  consternation  of  every  one 


GEORGE   D.    ROBINSON  171 

when  I  went  back  to  the  rooms  of  the  State  Com 
mittee,  and  stated  officially  that  Mr.  Pierce  had 
finally  withdrawn.  I  felt  anxious  myself,  but  not  so 
much  disturbed  as  the  others ;  for  I  knew  Mr.  Rob 
inson  was  coming  to  town,  and  I  meant  to  appeal  to 
him  to  step  into  the  gap  and  take  the  nomination. 
I  met  him  that  day  at  the  office  of  his  brother, 
Charles  Robinson,  in  the  Rogers  Building.  Our 
interview  is  one  of  the  incidents  of  my  life  which  I 
most  vividly  remember.  After  we  had  shaken 
hands,  I  said  to  him,  "  Mr.  Robinson,  Mr.  Pierce 
has  withdrawn,  and  you  must  take  the  nomination." 
He  looked  at  me  with  his  head  up  in  the  confident 
manner  so  characteristic  of  him,  and  with  which 
I  became  afterwards  so  familiar,  and  said,  "  Mr. 
Lodge,  I  have  not  sought  the  governorship ;  but,  if 
the  party  wants  me  and  needs  me,  I  will  stand."  I 
shall  never  forget  the  relief  which  I  felt  and  the  confi 
dence  with  which  his  answer,  coming  as  it  did  in  the 
midst  of  refusals  and  hesitations,  inspired  me. 

He  was  nominated  the  next  day,  practically  with 
out  opposition  ;  and  his  short  speech  of  acceptance 
gave  to  the  convention  the  same  feeling  of  confidence 
which  he  had  already  given  to  me.  When  he  looked 
the  delegates,  as  he  did  every  one,  squarely  in  the 
face,  and  said,  "  It  is  your  duty  to  command  :  I  count 
it  mine  to  obey,"  a  sense  of  relief  filled  the  conven 
tion.  After  the  days  of  doubt,  hesitation,  and  alarm 


172      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

the  strong  man,  the  man  able  and  willing  to  lead, 
had  come;  and  every  one  recognized  it.  As  we 
walked  away  together  after  the  convention,  he  said 
to  me :  "  We  have  a  hard  fight  before  us,  and  you 
and  I  are  to  be  thrown  together  very  closely.  I 
want  you  to  be  perfectly  frank  with  me  about  every 
thing,  and  to  call  upon  me  unhesitatingly  for  all  I 
can  do.  I  am  a  poor  man,  and  have  no  money  to 
put  into  the  campaign ;  but  my  time  and  strength 
are  at  the  service  of  the  party."  Every  one  knows 
how  he  kept  his  word ;  but  no  one  can  appreciate  it, 
I  think,  quite  so  fully  as  I  do.  The  relations  be 
tween  the  chairman  of  a  State  committee  and  his 
candidate  are  not  always  very  easy.  The  chairman, 
working  for  party  victory,  is  obliged  to  press  the 
candidate  pretty  hard,  and  sometimes  almost  un 
reasonably  ;  but  in  that  campaign  the  candidate  met 
every  demand  upon  him,  not  only  willingly,  but 
gladly. 

Governor  Robinson  shrank  from  no  effort  and  no 
fatigue.  He  made  during  the  campaign,  as  I  re 
member,  some  seventy-three  speeches.  I  think  he 
made  nine  on  the  last  day ;  and  he  never  failed  in 
the  force,  variety,  and  freshness  of  what  he  said. 
With  the  exception  of  the  Lincoln  and  Douglas  de 
bate,  I  do  not  believe  that  Governor  Robinson's 
campaign  against  General  Butler  has  ever  been 
surpassed  in  a  debate  before  the  people.  It  was  a 


GEORGE   D.    ROBINSON  173 

close,  hard  fight ;  and  I  have  never  questioned  that 
it  was  his  commanding  leadership  which  turned  the 
scale.  He  never  lost  his  temper,  his  good  sense 
never  failed.  He  followed  his  antagonist  relent 
lessly,  and  without  a  syllable  of  personal  abuse 
struck  blow  after  blow,  and  never  left  an  argument 
unanswered  or  a  position  unassailed.  The  confi 
dence  and  enthusiasm  which  he  inspired  grew  and 
strengthened  with  each  day  and  with  every  speech ; 
and  when  it  was  all  over  and  the  polls  had  closed, 
he  received  the  news  of  his  victory  with  the  same 
calm  cheerfulness  with  which  he  had  faced  the  heady 
currents  of  the  fight. 

After  his  brilliant  and  successful  campaign  for  the 
governorship,  he  went  to  Washington  in  December, 
1883,  to  participate  in  the  organization  of  the  Forty- 
eighth  Congress,  to  which  he  had  been  elected  the 
year  before.  On  the  2d  of  January  following  he 
forwarded  his  resignation  of  his  seat  in  Congress  to 
Governor  Butler.  The  Governor's  reply  was  character 
istic  :  "  Your  resignation  of  your  office  of  representa 
tive  in  the  Forty-eighth  Congress  of  the  United  States 
from  the  Twelfth  District  of  Massachusetts,  tendered 
to  the  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth  this  morning, 
is  hereby  accepted,  the  reason  prompting  the  same 
being  so  entirely  satisfactory  to  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  State." 

Thus  he  passed  from  the  parliamentary  field,  for 


174     THREE   GOVERNORS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

which  he  was  so  peculiarly  fitted,  and  where  he  had 
won  so  much  success,  to  the  high  executive  office  of 
Governor  of  Massachusetts.  He  was  twice  re-elected 
without  really  serious  opposition,  and  was  never  in 
danger  of  defeat.  To  the  important  business  of  ad 
ministration  he  brought  the  same  diligence,  ability, 
thoroughness,  and  conscientious  work  which  had 
marked  his  whole  career.  He  was  an  extremely 
successful  governor.  He  had  entire  courage,  and 
never  hesitated  to  stop  a  measure  with  his  veto  if  he 
thought  it  wrong,  no  matter  how  strong  the  popu 
lar  feeling  in  its  favor  appeared  to  be.  He  devoted 
to  the  endless  details  of  executive  business  the  same 
attention,  thought,  and  ability  which  he  used  to  give 
to  an  exciting  debate  in  the  national  House,  when 
he  was  speaking  and  voting  with  the  eyes  of  the 
country  upon  him.  He  came  up  to  the  high  stand 
ard  which  the  State  demands  of  her  governors,  and  at 
the  close  of  his  last  term  he  commanded  the  approval 
of  all  the  people  to  a  degree  which  is  rarely  witnessed. 
The  State  was  proud  of  him,  the  people  admired  him ; 
but  the  feeling  which  he  inspired  above  all  others 
was  complete  confidence  in  his  ability,  courage,  and 
strength. 

When  he  left  the  governorship,  he  returned  to 
private  life  and  to  the  practice  of  his  profession. 
He  liked  the  work  of  public  life,  as  every  strong 
man  likes  to  do  that  which  he  knows  he  does  well ; 


GEORGE   D.   ROBINSON  175 

but  Governor  Robinson  felt  that  his  duty  to  his 
family  required  him  to  abandon  politics,  although  he 
might  have  had  anything  the  State  could  give, 
and  address  himself  to  labors  which  would  make 
provision  for  the  future  and  for  those  dearest  to  him. 
There  were  no  repinings  and  no  rejoicings.  He  went 
out  of  public  life,  leaving  behind  him  all  its  attrac 
tion  and  all  its  drawbacks,  with  the  same  philo 
sophic  cheerfulness  with  which  he  had  accepted  his 
first  nomination  for  governor  or  heard  later  the 
news  of  his  great  victory  flashed  over  the  wires  to 
Chicopee.  Once  out  of  politics,  he  cast  no  backward 
looks,  but  gave  his  whole  strength  to  his  profession, 
although  he  would  always  come  forward  in  the  cam 
paigns  and  help  his  party  with  a  speech,  when  the 
fight  was  hottest  and  his  aid  most  needed. 

Of  his  success  at  the  bar,  after  his  return  to  it 
there  is  no  need  to  speak.  It  is  still  fresh  in  every 
one's  mind.  Thus  busily  engaged,  nine  years  went 
by ;  and  then  he  was  suddenly  stricken  down.  He 
was  so  strong,  so  temperate,  so  vigorous  in  all  ways 
that  the  idea  of  illness  seemed  utterly  remote  from 
him.  We  all,  I  think,  regarded  him  as  a  man,  above 
all  others,  who  was  destined  to  a  long  life  and  to  a 
strong  old  age,  surpassing  even  that  of  his  long-lived 
ancestry.  Death  is  the  commonest  of  events;  but 
it  is  always  a  surprise,  and  in  this  case  the  shock  was 
especially  sudden  and  severe.  The  blow  was  instant 


176  THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

and  decisive,  like  the  strong  man  who  fell  beneath 
it;  but  it  was  none  the  less  hard  to  bear  for  the 
people  of  this  Commonwealth,  who  had  looked  up  to 
him,  followed  him,  honored  him.  Still  in  his  prime, 
in  the  vigor  of  his  manhood,  he  had  been  reft  from 
us ;  and  the  people  of  Massachusetts  mourned  beside 
his  grave. 

So  the  story  of  the  life  and  the  career  ends  with 
the  sad  ending  of  all  our  little  human  histories.  It 
seems  to  me  a  very  fine  story,  even  when  told  as  im 
perfectly  and  incompletely  as  I  have  told  it  to  you. 
It  is  not  only  a  life  which  it  will  be  a  pride  to  his 
children  to  recall,  but  it  is  full  of  meaning  and  en 
couragement  to  us  all.  The  character  and  qualities 
of  the  man  himself  seem  to  me  to  shine  out  very 
brightly  through  the  brief  abstract  and  chronicle  of 
what  he  did  in  this  busy  world.  They  are  worth 
considering  by  all  men  who  love  Massachusetts,  and 
who  are  inspired  with  eager,  earnest  hopes  for  the 
destiny  of  their  country  and  their  race. 

Note,  first,  that  he  was  a  strong  man  physically, 
big,  deep-chested,  able  to  withstand  toil  and  stress. 
This  is  a  point  which  is  too  often  overlooked  ;  and 
yet  it  is  of  grave  importance,  for  the  puny  races  of 
men  go  to  the  wall.  Governor  Eobinson  was  a  fine 
proof  of  the  fact  that  the  descendants  of  the  hardy 
Englishmen  who  settled  here  had  not  degenerated, 
but  rather  had  waxed  stronger  in  bone  and  muscle 


GEORGE  D.   ROBINSON  177 

and  sinews  in  their  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of 
American  life.  Mind  and  character  matched  the 
physical  attributes.  Strength  of  will  and  vigor  of 
mind  were  his  two  most  characteristic  qualities.  He 
was  exceedingly  temperate  in  all  ways,  a  man  of 
pure,  clean,  wholesome  life.  The  desires  of  the 
senses  were  under  as  much  control  as  his  temper. 
He  was  always  cool,  and  his  judgment  was  never 
clouded  by  excitement.  The  stern  spirit  of  self- 
sacrifice  to  a  great  purpose,  which  brought  the  Puri 
tans  to  the  wilderness,  survived  in  him,  mellowed  no 
doubt,  but  just  as  effective  as  of  old  in  the  condi 
tions  of  life  which  he  was  called  to  meet.  He  had 
deep  convictions  on  all  questions ;  but  he  was  always 
just,  tolerant,  and  fair.  He  was  a  hard  worker,  one 
who  never  shirked  and  never  complained.  Karely 
have  I  met  a  man  of  such  even  cheerfulness  under  all 
circumstances.  The  words  which  Washington  used 
about  the  Constitution  often  came  to  my  mind  when 
I  watched  Governor  Robinson's  method  of  dealing 
with  public  affairs :  "  We  have  set  up  a  standard  to 
which  the  good  and  wise  may  repair :  the  event  is  in 
the  hands  of  God."  He  did  his  best  always,  and  never 
worried  before  nor  repined  after  the  event,  if  things 
went  ill,  nor  rejoiced  unduly,  if  they  went  well. 

He  made  his  greatest  reputation  as  a  debater  in 
Congress  and  before  the  people.  He  was  not  a  rhet 
orician,  and  never  tried  to  be.  When  Antony  says, 

12 


178     THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

t(  I  am  no  orator,  as  Brutus  is  ; 
But,  as  you  know  me  all,  a  plain,  blunt  man, 
That  love  my  friend. 
I  only  speak  right  on," 

we  recognize  the  artistic  self-depreciation  of  the  most 
consummate  orator  who  ever  lived,  if  he  spoke  as 
Shakespeare  makes  him  speak.  But  what  Antony 
said  for  effect  might  be  said  with  truth  of  Governor 
Robinson.  He  was  the  plain,  blunt  man  who  spoke 
right  on  ;  and  he  was  a  master  of  this  most  difficult 
and  very  telling  kind  of  oratory.  He  was  no  phrase- 
maker,  no  rounder  of  periods,  no  seeker  for  meta 
phors  ;  but  he  was  one  of  the  most  effective  and 
convincing  speakers,  whether  to  Congress,  to  a  great 
popular  audience,  or  to  a  jury,  that  I  ever  listened  to. 
The  very  way  in  which  he  faced  an  audience,  with 
his  head  up,  and  a  bold,  confident,  but  never  arrogant 
manner,  calmed  the  most  hostile  and  roused  the 
most  indifferent.  He  used  simple  language  and 
clear  sentences.  He  had  a  remarkable  power  of 
nervous,  lucid  statement,  —  a  very  great  gift.  His 
arguments  were  keen  and  well  knit,  and  illumined 
by  a  strong  sense  of  humor  and  a  dry  wit  which 
were  very  delightful.  He  had,  above  all,  the  rare 
and  most  precious  faculty  of  making  his  hearers 
feel  that  he  was  putting  into  words  just  what  they 
had  always  thought,  but  had  never  been  able  to 
express  quite  so  well.  To  do  this  is  very  difficult. 


GEORGE  D.   ROBINSON  179 

It  does  not  come  merely  by  nature.  The  most  fa 
mous  poet  of  Queen  Anne's  day  thought  it  a  very 
great  art;  for  he  tells  us  that 

"  True  wit  is  nature  to  advantage  dressed ; 
What  oft  was  thought,  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed." 

Governor  Robinson  was,  in  one  word,  a  great 
debater,  —  one  of  the  best  of  his  generation;  and 
when  I  say  this,  it  implies  that  he  was  a  man  of  un 
usual  powers  of  thought,  incisive,  quick,  and  of  large 
mental  resource. 

But  his  remarkable  ability  as  a  speaker,  his  shrewd 
ness  and  justice  and  diligence  in  all  the  affairs  of  life, 
his  calm  temper  and  his  cheerful  philosophy,  while 
they  were  all  potent  factors  in  his  success  and  his 
popularity,  were  not  his  only  nor  his  highest  qual 
ities.  It  is  a  very  happy  thing  to  be  popular  and 
successful ;  but  it  is  a  much  nobler  thing  to  command 
the  affectionate  and  deep  confidence,  not  only  of 
friends,  but  of  a  great  community.  This  Governor 
Robinson  did  in  a  high  degree,  and  the  secret  lay  in 
his  character.  People  trusted  him,  not  because  he 
was  a  brilliant  and  convincing  speaker,  of  whom 
they  were  proud,  or  even  because  he  was  a  faithful 
and  admirable  chief  magistrate,  but  because  they 
knew  him  to  be  an  entirely  honest  and  fearless 
man.  They  saw  that  he  was  simple  in  his  life, 
thoroughly  democratic,  educated,  and  trained,  with 


180     THREE   GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

a  mind  open  to  new  ideas,  and  yet  with  the  ingrained 
conservatism  and  the  reverence  for  law  and  order 
which  New  England  has  always  cherished ;  and, 
therefore,  they  believed  in  him.  Instinctively,  the 
people  turned  to  him  as  the  strong  man  fit  for 
leadership  and  command,  who  would  never  waver 
in  the  face  of  danger  and  never  betray  a  trust. 

Is  not  our  question  as  to  the  result  of  the  Puritan 
civilization  answered  by  such  a  life  and  such  a  char 
acter  ?  The  old  qualities  are  all  there,  the  old  fight 
ing  qualities,  and  ever  with  them  the  mastering 
sense  of  duty  to  God,  to  country,  and  to  family. 
They  have  not  weakened  in  the  centuries  that  have 
come  and  gone.  They  have  broadened,  but  they 
have  not  pined  or  faded.  They  have  not  been 
refined  and  cultivated  to  nothingness;  and  if  you 
strike  down  and  call  upon  the  yeomanry  of  Massa 
chusetts,  you  find  a  man  like  this  to  stand  forward, 
when  the  State  needs  him.  They  tell  us  sometimes 
that  our  people  are  too  much  like  the  granite  of  our 
hills.  So  be  it.  Strength  and  endurance,  offering 
an  unchanging  face  to  storm  and  sunshine  alike, 
are  the  qualities  of  granite  and  the  foundations  also 
on  which  a  race  can  build  a  great  present  and  a 
mighty  future.  But  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that,  if 
the  outside  of  the  granite  cliff  is  somewhat  stern  and 
gray,  when  you  pierce  its  heart,  you  find  running 
across  it  the  rich  warm  veins  of  color  gathered  there 


GEORGE  D.   ROBINSON  181 

through  dim  ages  in  which  contending  forces  moulded 
the  earth  forms  we  now  see  about  us.  Again,  I  say 
we  have  done  well  to  meet  together  in  memory  of 
such  a  man.  He  has  earned  our  praise  and  our 
gratitude,  not  only  for  what  he  did  and  for  the  high 
titles  he  wore  so  well,  but  for  what  he  was.  In  his 
life  he  was  respected,  honored,  loved,  and  trusted. 
At  his  death  the  State,  over  which  he  had  once  been 
set,  bowed  her  head  in  grief.  But  across  the  dark 
ness  of  the  sorrow  comes  the  light  which  such  a  life 
sheds ;  for  we  may  take  to  our  hearts  the  lesson  it 
brings,  —  that  all  is  well  with  state  and  country 
while  they  breed  such  men  as  this. 


THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

III 

ROGER  WOLCOTT1 

"  Every  moment  dies  a  man, 
Every  moment  one  is  born." 

THERE  is  much  sad  philosophy  in  these  simple  and 
familiar  lines  from  Tennyson's  famous  poem.  The 
lamp  of  life  kindles  into  light  by  one  hearthstone, 
only  to  sink  down  in  darkness  by  another.  Every 
moment  death,  the  only  absolute  certainty  of  life, 
descends  upon  one  of  the  children  of  men.  Every 
moment  some  home  is  darkened,  some  family  bereft, 
some  heart  saddened,  perhaps  broken.  In  some 
corner,  no  matter  how  small  or  humble,  at  every 
instant  the  light  has  gone  out,  and  the  little  world 
of  the  inmates  has  crumbled  away  about  them. 
Surely  it  seems  to  them  at  that  dark  hour  that  the 
very  universe  itself  must  have  stopped  too.  Then 
comes  swiftly  the  first  harsh  awakening.  The 
stricken  soul,  when  night  has  passed,  looks  forth, 

1  An  address  delivered  at  Symphony  Hall  in  Boston  on  the  occa 
sion  of  the  services  in  memory  of  Roger  Wolcott,  Governor  of  Massa 
chusetts,  1898-1901,  on  April  18,  1901. 


ROGER   WOLCOTT  183 

and  lo !  the  great  world  of  nature  is  unchanged. 
The  rising  sun  shoots  its  red  shafts  across  the  dark 
waters,  or  gilds  the  city  roof  or  country  tree  top 
even  as  it  did  before.  The  twitter  of  birds  is  in 
the  air,  the  myriad  sounds  of  life  rise  murmuring 
from  the  earth,  a  new  day  is  given  to  man,  and 
nature,  smiling  or  frowning,  is  still  the  same,  ever 
beautiful  and  ever  indifferent  to  human  joy  or  hu 
man  sorrow. 

Then  comes  a  yet  sharper  pang.  Nature's  world 
moves  on,  and  so,  alas,  does  the  world  of  man. 
Horatio,  kneeling  by  the  body  of  Hamlet,  lifts  his 
head  and  cries,  u  Why  does  the  drum  come  hither  ?  " 
The  prince  he  loved,  the  noble  Laertes,  the  king  and 
queen,  all  the  majesty  of  Denmark,  lie  dead  about 
him,  slain  in  an  instant  by  steel  or  poison.  His 
world  is  in  ruins  at  his  feet.  Here  assuredly  is  the 
end  of  all  things.  And  then,  even  then,  at  that 
supreme  moment,  the  sounds  of  life  and  war  quiver 
in  the  air.  "  Why  does  the  drum  come  hither  ?  " 
All  is  not  over,  then.  Another  sunrise  is  at  hand, 
another  day  beginning.  Hamlet  is  dead,  and  yet  the 
world  is  marching  on  just  as  of  yore.  Its  drum 
beats  break  the  tragic  silence,  and  the  coming  foot 
steps  of  the  new  king  sound  in  the  mourner's  ear. 
In  all  the  range  of  the  greatest  genius  among  men 
there  is  no  finer,  deeper  touch  than  in  that  sudden 
cry  from  Horatio.  Those  few  words  are  fraught 


184      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

with  more  meaning  than  many  a  solemn  Greek 
chorus ;  they  pierce  our  hearts  with  the  eternal  cry 
of  humanity  in  the  first  agony  of  sorrow;  they  tell 
as  mercilessly  as  the  Norns  of  the  dim  Northland 
that  the  world  of  nature  and  of  men  is  ever  moving 
on  its  appointed  way. 

When,  therefore,  it  happens  that  a  man's  death 
gives  pause  to  the  march  of  life,  when  the  footfall 
of  the  columns  grows  faint  and  ceases,  when  the 
drums  are  hushed  and  a  stillness  gathers  over  the 
world  in  which  he  has  played  his  part,  then  we  may 
know  that  he  who  has  gone  was  one  deserving  of 
remembrance,  for  his  going  has  stayed  the  great 
procession  in  its  course,  and  there  must  have  been 
that  about  him  which  had  sunk  very  deep  into  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  his  fellow-men.  Such  was  the 
man  in  whose  memory  we  meet  to-day.  When  he 
died  there  came  a  hush  over  the  old  Commonwealth. 
Among  the  distant  hills,  in  crowded  city  streets,  and 
by  the  sounding  sea  men  and  women  paused.  Grief 
was  in  their  hearts,  and  words  of  sorrow  on  their 
lips.  The  drums  were  muffled,  the  columns  halted, 
the  march  of  life  was  stayed.  When  he  was  buried 
the  people  of  city  and  of  State  poured  forth  to  do 
him  honor.  They  turned  from  their  business  or 
their  pleasure  and  bowed  themselves  in  the  house  of 
mourning.  It  was  no  formal  sorrow,  no  official 
grief,  which  thus  found  expression.  It  came  from 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  185 

the  heart,  —  from  the  heart  of  a  great  people,  who 
had  known  and  loved  him. 

We  would  fain  leave  something  behind  us  to  tell 
those  who  come  after  us  why  we  so  sorrowed,  and 
what  manner  of  man  he  was  for  whom  we  grieved. 
We  have  the  human  yearning  to  bear  our  testimony, 
the  testimony  of  those  who  knew  him,  in  such 
fashion  that  the  erasing  finger  of  the  fleeting  years 
may  spare  it  to  be  read  by  the  generations  yet  un 
born.  For  this  purpose  we  have  gathered  here  to 
day.  For  this  purpose  I  have  been  chosen  to  put 
into  imperfect  words  that  which  we  all  feel,  to  ex 
press  in  formal  and  in  public  manner  the  sorrow  and 
admiration  of  State  and  city  for  the  man  so  long 
the  first  citizen  and  the  chief  magistrate  of  the 
Commonwealth. 

You  will  pardon  me  if  for  a  moment  I  speak  with 
a  personal  accent.  To  be  summoned  to  tell  the  life 
story  and  life  work  of  a  dear  friend  and  contempo 
rary  is  the  saddest  of  all  the  labors  of  love.  I  turn 
to  the  record  to  draw  from  it  the  story  I  would  re 
peat  to  you,  and  which  we  all  know  so  well.  Every 
thing  is  there  ready  to  my  hand,  but  memory  and 
her  attendant  ghosts  come  between  me  and  the 
printed  page,  and  will  not  be  swept  aside.  I  cannot 
see  the  facts  and  dates  now.  I  can  see  only  two 
handsome  brothers,  boys  at  school,  liked  by  all, 
especially  popular  with  the  smaller  boys,  of  whom  I 


186      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

am  one,  because  they  are  always  kind  and  good- 
natured.  Fine,  manly,  vigorous  boys  they  are; 
active  in  every  sport  and  full  of  the  joy  of  existence. 
It  is  war  time,  and  the  school  is  very  patriotic  and 
feverishly  interested  in  soldiers  and  in  battles. 
Presently  the  elder  of  the  brothers  disappears  from 
school,  and  we  hear  that  he  has  gone  to  the  war. 
We  all  think  it  very  splendid,  and  wish  that  we  too 
could  go  and  follow  him. 

Memories  of  boyhood  are  like  dreams.  They  take 
no  heed  of  time.  There  is  in  memory  no  space 
between  the  elder  brother  at  school  and  the  next 
scene.  In  reality  there  was  an  interval  of  brave, 
active  service,  even  while  we  boys  at  home  played  on 
as  before.  All  this  vanishes  in  recollection.  He 
had  gone  to  the  front,  he  had  come  home  wasted 
with  fever,  he  was  dead,  that  was  all  we  knew. 
Now  the  page  of  memory  grows  luminous  indeed. 
The  school  goes  to  his  funeral,  and  there,  in  the 
familiar  house  in  Boylston  Street,  we  see  him  in  his 
coffin,  very  pale  and  worn,  dressed  in  the  uniform  of 
the  United  States,  while  the  younger  brother  stands 
beside  the  dead,  learning  a  lesson  which  is  to  affect 
his  whole  life.  Now  we  know  once  for  all  what 
patriotism  means.  The  whole  scene  shines  out  in 
memory  like  the  landscape  under  the  flash  of  light 
ning  on  a  summer's  night. 

Then  the  veil  drops  again,  the  years  go  by,  and  I 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  187 

see  the  survivor  of  the  two  brothers  entering  college 
in  the  same  year  as  myself,  he  as  sophomore  and  I 
as  freshman.  Although  a  class  ahead  of  me,  he  is 
one  of  the  well-remembered  figures  of  my  Harvard 
days  ;  handsome,  kindly  always,  one  of  those  who 
in  any  place  or  company  could  never  be  overlooked, 
and  we  meet  constantly  in  societies  and  in  the  daily 
life  of  the  college.  Then  he  passed  from  Cambridge. 
I  followed  him,  and  we  went  our  several  ways  into 
the  world.  Presently  I  heard  of  him  in  city  politics, 
then  in  the  legislature ;  then  our  paths  again  con 
verged,  and  he  rose  to  be  the  head  of  the  State  and 
of  the  party.  Thus  we  came  together  once  more,  as 
in  the  old  school  days,  engaged  now  in  a  common 
cause,  and  speaking  many  times  from  the  same  plat 
form.  However  often  we  met  in  this  way,  the  pride 
and  pleasure  I  felt  in  watching  him  and  in  listening 
to  his  ripening  eloquence  grew  with  each  occasion, 
and  the  pride  and  pleasure  were  of  that  peculiar 
kind  which  springs  up  only  when  two  men  have 
been  boys  together  and  friends  for  a  lifetime. 
Every  time  I  saw  him  rise  and  address  an  audience 
I  felt  a  fresh  glow  of  delight  as  I  looked  at  him,  and 
thought  how  completely  the  stately  figure,  the  clear 
and  dignified  speech,  the  honesty  of  purpose  and  high- 
minded  devotion  to  duty  which  could  be  read  in  his 
face  and  heard  in  his  words  befitted  the  great  office 
which  he  held.  Again  and  again  I  have  longed  to 


188      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

cry  out  to  the  world,  "  Look  well  upon  him  ;  that 
is  the  man  whom  Massachusetts  chooses  to  represent 
her ;  do  you  wonder  that  we  are  proud  of  the  State 
which  breeds  such  men,  and  gives  such  a  successor  to 
Winthrop  and  to  Andrew  ?  "  I  cannot  longer  trust 
myself  with  memories.  They  are  bringing  me  too 
near  the  shadowed  present.  They  can  only  end  in 
unavailing  tears.  Each  in  our  degree,  we  all  share 
in  them  and  treasure  them. 

"  There  's  rosemary,  that 's  for  remembrance : 
Pray,  love,  remember." 

We  who  have  known  him,  we  shall  not  forget. 
Let  me  lay  down  the  rosemary,  it  is  nearest  to  our 
hearts,  and  from  the  records  of  the  past  gather  up 
the  laurel. 

No  element  of  the  English-speaking  people  has  had 
a  more  profound  influence  upon  their  history  and  for 
tunes,  both  in  the  old  world  and  the  new,  than  the 
Puritans  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  their  de 
scendants.  From  the  stock  of  Puritan  Englishmen, 
pure  and  unmixed,  Roger  Wolcott  derived  his  ances 
try.  The  founder  of  the  family  in  New  England 
was  Henry  Wolcott,  a  Somersetshire  gentleman,  the 
owner  of  Goldon  Manor,  and  other  estates  near  Tol- 
land  in  that  county.  He  did  not  leave  England 
when  past  middle  life  to  seek  new  fortunes  in  a  new 
world,  but  he  abandoned  fortune,  high  position,  and 
a  generous  estate  in  obedience  to  his  religious  beliefs, 


ROGER   WOLCOTT  189 

and  fared  forth  across  the  Atlantic  to  find  a  home 
for  them  in  the  forests  of  America.  He  reached 
Boston  the  30th  of  May,  1630,  settled  at  Dorchester, 
as  it  was  named  soon  afterward,  and  moved  thence, 
with  Mr.  Wareham's  church,  to  Windsor,  Connecti 
cut.  In  1637  he  was  chosen  a  member  of  the  lower 
house  of  the  legislature,  and  next  year  a  member  of 
the  upper  house  of  magistrates,  to  which  he  was  an 
nually  re-elected  during  the  remainder  of  his  life. 

Simon  Wolcott,  the  son  of  the  immigrant,  married 
Martha  Pitkin,  the  sister  of  the  governor  of  the 
colony,  and  of  this  marriage  was  born  Roger,  in 
1679.  Before  he  was  thirty  Eoger  had  become 
selectman  of  his  town,  and  thus  began  his  long  and 
active  career,  which  was  at  once  military,  judicial, 
and  political.  He  was  commissary  of  the  American 
forces  in  the  Canadian  expedition  of  1711,  and  second 
in  command  to  Sir  William  Pepperell  in  the  campaign 
of  1745,  which  resulted  in  the  capture  of  Louisburg. 
As  a  lawyer  he  rose  steadily,  attaining  the  Supreme 
Bench  in  1732.  As  a  public  man  he  reached  the 
highest  place,  that  of  governor,  to  which  he  was 
chosen  in  1750  and  for  four  successive  years.  He 
was  a  strong,  able  man  of  high  character  arid  great 
vigor,  possessing,  evidently,  in  full  measure  the  ver 
satility  of  the  Elizabethan  Englishmen  from  whom 
he  sprang. 

Oliver,  the  son  of  Roger,  followed  in  his  father's 


190     THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

footsteps.  A  captain  in  the  old  French  war,  he  was 
a  brigadier  and  afterward  a  major-general  in  the  Rev 
olution.  Again,  like  his  father,  he  was  a  member 
of  the  Legislature  and  the  Council,  then  a  Probate 
Judge  and  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas.  When 
the  Revolution  came  he  was  an  active  member  of  the 
Committee  of  Safety,  for  seven  years  a  member 
of  the  Continental  Congress,  and  a  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  His  son  Oliver  also 
saw  service  in  the  army  during  the  Revolution,  was 
admitted  to  the  bar,  and  in  1789  was  appointed  Audi 
tor  of  the  Treasury  by  Washington.  Two  years  later 
he  was  made  Comptroller,  and  in  1795,  on  the  retire 
ment  of  Hamilton,  he  became  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury  and  a  member  of  Washington's  Cabinet.  In  this 
position  he  continued  during  the  Adams  administra 
tion,  retiring  in  1800  and  accepting  a  seat  on  the 
bench  of  the  United  States  as  a  judge  of  the  Circuit 
Court  for  the  second  district.  In  1815  he  returned  to 
his  native  town,  and  in  1817  was  elected  governor  of 
Connecticut,  an  office  which  he  held  for  ten  years  by 
successive  annual  elections. 

Another  son  of  the  elder  Oliver,  and  a  brother  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  Frederick  Wol- 
cott,  who,  after  the  fashion  of  his  family,  was  dis 
tinguished  in  the  public  life  of  his  own  State,  although 
he  never  entered  the  field  of  national  politics.  He 
served  the  State  in  Legislature  and  Council  and  on 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  191 

the  bench.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Corporation  of 
Yale  College  and  conspicuous  in  philanthropy  and 
all  movements  for  the  advancement  of  learning.  He 
married  Elizabeth  Huntington,  the  granddaughter  of 
Jabez  Huntington,  who  was  one  of  the  leading  pa 
triots  of  Connecticut ;  he  and  his  five  sons  being  all 
soldiers  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  all  distin 
guished  in  the  service.  From  this  marriage  was 
born  Joshua  Huntington  Wolcott,  who,  coming  as 
a  boy  to  Boston,  entered  the  counting-house  of 
A.  &  A.  Lawrence,  rose  to  be  a  partner  at  the  age 
of  twenty-six,  and  during  a  long  life  was  a  success 
ful  merchant  of  high  character,  ability,  and  probity. 
In  Boston  he  married  Cornelia,  the  daughter  of 
Samuel  Frothingham,  and  by  her  had  two  sons, — 
Huntington,  who  died  a  soldier  of  the  United  States, 
and  Roger,  the  late  governor  of  this  Commonwealth. 
It  is  worth  consideration,  this  genealogy  which  I 
have  hastily  sketched  in  bare  outline.  We  have 
here  one  of  the  rare  instances  of  a  family  which, 
starting  in  America  with  a  man  of  fortune  and  good 
estate,  always  retained  its  position  in  the  community. 
In  the  main  line  at  least  it  never  encountered  the 
vicissitudes  which  attend  nearly  all  families  in  the 
course  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years.  The  name 
never  dropped  out  of  sight,  but  was  always  borne  up 
by  its  representatives  in  the  same  place  in  society  as 
that  held  by  the  founder.  More  remarkable  still,  in 


192     THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

almost  every  generation  there  was  at  least  one  of  the 
lineal  male  descendants  of  the  first  immigrant  who 
rose  to  the  very  highest  positions  in  military,  politi 
cal,  and  judicial  life.  The  list  of  judges,  governors, 
generals,  Cabinet  officers,  and  members  of  Congress 
in  this  pedigree  is  a  long  and  striking  one.  From 
the  days  of  the  Somersetshire  gentleman  to  those  of 
the  present  generation,  which  has  given  a  governor 
to  Massachusetts  and  a  brilliant  Senator  from  Colo 
rado  to  the  United  States,  the  Wolcotts,  both  as 
soldiers  and  civilians,  have  rendered  service  to  their 
country,  as  eminent  as  it  has  been  unbroken.  War  and 
statecraft  were  in  the  blood  of  this  race,  and  can  we 
wonder  that  they  have  found  fitting  exemplars  in 
our  own  time  ?  It  is  not  a  name  made  illustrious 
by  some  single  ancestor  in  a  dim  past  and  suffered 
to  rust  unused  by  descendants  who  were  content  with 
the  possession  of  a  trade-mark.  Here  is  a  long  roll 
of  honor,  where  the  son  felt  that  he  would  be  un 
worthy  of  his  father  if  he  did  not  add  fresh  lustre  to 
the  name  he  bore  by  service  to  his  State  and  country, 
either  in  the  hour  of  trial  or  in  the  pleasant  paths  of 
peace. 

This,  then,  was  the  heritage,  these  the  traditions 
to  which  Roger  Wolcott  fell  heir  when  he  was  born 
in  Boston  on  July  13,  1847.  There  and  in  Milton 
his  boyhood  was  passed.  He  was  educated  at  the 
private  Latin  school  of  Mr.  E.  S.  Dixwell,  and  for  a 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  li)3 

short  time  in  Europe,  whither  he  went  with  his  family 
after  his  brother's  death.  He  returned  in  1867  and 
entered  the  sophomore  class  at  Harvard  in  that  year. 
He  took  a  conspicuous  place  in  college,  and  stood 
high,  not  only  in  his  studies,  but  in  the  estimation 
of  the  faculty  and  in  the  regard  of  his  own  class  and 
of  all  the  students  of  that  period.  He  was  chosen 
the  orator  of  his  class,  and  delivered  the  oration  on 
his  class  day  in  1870.  Class  day  orations  do  not,  as 
a  rule,  add  much  to  permanent  literature  or  to  the 
sum  of  human  information.  They  generally  pass 
away  with  the  sunshine  and  the  music,  the  cheers 
and  the  flowers  of  the  merry  day  which  brings  them 
forth.  But  I  have  been  struck,  on  reading  over 
Governor  Wolcott's  class  oration,  with  the  good 
sense  and  unusual  maturity  of  thought  which  it 
displays.  These  occasions  are  ordinarily  irresistible 
in  their  temptation  to  a  profuse  use  of  language  and 
to  the  exhibition  of  a  wisdom  or  a  cynicism  of  which 
happy  youth  is  alone  capable.  Here  in  Governor 
Wolcott's  oration  there  is  nothing  of  all  this.  The 
style  is  sober  and  unstrained,  and  there  is  a  central 
thought  which  is  followed  steadily.  His  plea  was  for 
the  preservation  of  enthusiasm  and  faith,  a  gospel 
always  worth  preaching  to  a  graduating  class,  dis 
posed  to  be  world-weary,  and  too  seldom  expounded 
by  a  student  to  his  fellows.  One  sentence  is  so  char 
acteristic  and  foretells  so  strongly  the  future  career 

13 


194      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF   MASSACHUSETTS 

of  the  speaker  that  I  will  quote  it.  "  No  educated 
man,"  he  says,  "  is  justified  in  shrinking  from  the 
responsibility  which  is  thrust  upon  him,  nor  is  it 
possible  for  an  American  citizen  to  wash  his  hands 
of  his  country.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  neutrality 
in  citizenship.  He  who  is  not  with  his  country  is 
against  her."  Sound  doctrine,  strongly  put ;  more 
needed  just  then,  I  think,  than  now,  but  carrying  a 
truth  which  cannot  too  often  be  pressed  home  upon 
the  educated  men  of  the  United  States. 

After  graduation  Governor  Wolcott  was  for  two 
years  a  tutor  in  French  at  Harvard.  At  the  same 
time  he  studied  law,  taking  his  degree  at  the  Law 
School  in  1874,  and  soon  after  was  admitted  to  the 
Suffolk  bar,  although  he  never  engaged  in  active 
practice.  Almost  immediately  upon  leaving  college 
he  began  to  take  part  in  politics,  and  his  beginning 
was  of  exactly  the  right  sort.  He  did  not  manifest 
his  interest  in  public  affairs. by  merely  criticising 
those  who  were  engaged  in  them,  and  by  doleful 
wailings  that  things  generally  were  not  better.  On 
the  contrary,  he  plunged  in  himself  and  tried  to 
make  things  better  by  his  own  exertions.  He  took 
his  share  of  party  work,  went  to  ward  meetings, 
helped  to  get  the  vote  registered  and  to  bring  it  out, 
and  then  distributed  ballots  at  the  polls  on  election 
day.  In  1876  he  was  elected  to  the  Common  Council, 
where  he  served  for  three  years  (1877,  1878,  1879), 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  195 

becoming  the  acknowledged  leader,  and  being  sup 
ported  by  his  party  for  the  presidency  of  that  body. 
In  1881  he  was  elected  to  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  in  the  legislature.  His  second  year  was  that 
of  General  Butler  as  governor,  —  a  somewhat  try 
ing  period,  especially  to  Mr.  Wolcott,  who  was  the 
recognized  leader  of  the  Republicans  on  the  floor. 
He  served  three  years  in  the  legislature,  winning 
the  confidence  of  every  one,  and  extending  his 
reputation  throughout  the  State  as  a  man  of  ability, 
judgment,  high  character,  and  devotion  to  the  public 
interests. 

It  was  at  this  time,  and  owing  to  his  success  in 
the  legislature,  that  his  name  was  first  suggested  as 
a  candidate  for  governor.  The  suggestion,  without 
doubt,  would  soon  have  borne  fruit  had  it  not  been 
for  the  course  of  national  politics.  The  nomination 
of  Mr.  Elaine  for  the  presidency  was  opposed  by 
Mr.  Wolcott,  and  when  made  was  strongly  disap 
proved  by  him.  He  was  too  earnest  a  Republican 
and  too  deeply  attached  to  Republican  principles  to 
throw  himself  into  opposition  or  seek  to  destroy  his 
party  because  it  had  made  a  nomination  which  was 
distasteful  to  him.  He  contented  himself  by  with 
drawing  for  the  time  from  the  active  political  work 
in  which  he  had  always  been  so  much  engaged. 
This  retirement,  however,  implied  neither  inactivity 
nor  leisure.  He  had  many  occupations  and  pursuits 


196     THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

other  than  politics  to  which  he  was  able  to  devote 
himself,  and  where  he  could  render  valuable  service 
to  the  public. 

I  have  been  astonished,  in  looking  over  the  list  of 
positions  which  he  held,  at  the  number  and  variety 
of  his  interests  and  at  the  work  which  I  know  these 
positions  must  have  involved,  especially  for  a  man 
with  his  keen  sense  of  responsibility.  If  I  mention 
some  of  them,  the  mere  recital  of  the  names  will 
bring  a  more  vivid  idea  of  the  fulness  of  his  life 
than  any  words  of  description  could  possibly  do. 
He  was  a  trustee  of  the  New  England  Trust  Com 
pany,  a  director  of  the  Providence  Railroad  and 
of  several  manufacturing  corporations.  The  offer 
once  made  to  him  of  the  treasurership  of  one  of 
the  New  England  mills  is  proof  of  the  capacity  he 
showed  in  these  business  positions  and  of  the  at 
tention  he  gave  to  their  duties.  He  was  a  member 
of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  and  of  the 
Society  of  the  Cincinnati  and  the  Society  of  Colonial 
Wars,  which  all  appealed  strongly  to  his  love  of 
American  history,  in  which  his  ancestors  had  played 
such  honorable  parts.  He  was  an  overseer  of  Har 
vard,  and  visitor  of  the  departments  of  the  univer 
sity.  He  was  a  vestryman  of  King's  Chapel,  a 
member  of  the  Civil  Service  Keform  and  Social 
Science  Associations,  a  trustee  of  the  Massachusetts 
General  Hospital,  the  Eye  and  Ear  Infirmary,  the 


ROGER   WOLCOTT  197 

Boston  Dispensary,  and  at  one  time  a  visitor  among 
the  poor  for  the  Provident  Association. 

This  catalogue,  dry  as  it  sounds,  has  deep  signifi 
cance.  Think  for  a  moment  how  business  has  been 
promoted,  how  literature  and  historical  research  have 
been  advanced,  how  better  manners  and  purer  laws 
have  been  encouraged,  and,  most  important  of  all, 
how  much  charity  has  been  dispensed  and  how 
greatly  human  suffering  has  been  relieved  by  the  soci 
eties  and  corporations  the  names  of  which  I  have  just 
repeated.  These  libraries  and  charities  and  hospitals 
are  the  glory  of  this  community,  and  they  must  be 
directed  by  men  who  will  work  hard  and  take  heavy 
responsibility  without  any  hope  or  desire  of  personal 
reward.  I  have  heard  it  often  said  that  to  people 
who  have  no  occupation,  much  wealth,  and  some 
education,  the  United  States  offers  nothing.  I 
gratefully  and  profoundly  believe  in  the  truth  of 
this  proposition.  The  day  is,  I  trust,  far  distant 
when  America  will  furnish  conditions  thoroughly 
agreeable  to  idlers  and  triflers.  But  when  it  is  said, 
as  it  sometimes  is,  that  there  is  no  opportunity  here 
for  men  of  leisure,  nothing  can  be  more  false.  In 
no  country  in  the  world  is  there  larger  and  finer 
opportunity  for  the  man  who  is  master  of  his  time, 
for  nowhere  is  there  more  need  of  men  who  can, 
without  pay,  serve  the  community  in  the  beneficent 
work  of  philanthropy,  in  the  promotion  of  art  and 


198      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

learning,  and  in  all  that  makes  for  the  relief  of 
suffering  and  the  uplifting  of  the  intellectual  and 
moral  interests  of  our  nation.  Roger  Wolcott  was 
one  of  the  men  who  understood  this  need,  who  re 
garded  his  own  freedom  from  the  necessity  of  work 
as  a  trust  to  be  fulfilled,  not  as  a  luxury  to  be  en 
joyed,  and  who  gave  his  time  and  strength  to  the 
service  of  his  country  and  his  fellow-men  just  as 
amply  as  a  private  citizen  as  when  he  held  high 
office.  It  is  a  noble  record  of  public  service  unself 
ishly  and  quietly  performed,  an  example  to  be 
studied  and  followed  by  all  those  to  whom  fortune 
has  been  bountiful  in  her  gifts. 

Mr.  Wolcott' s  withdrawal  from  politics,  temporary 
at  first,  was  continued  on  account  of  the  illness  of 
his  father.  From  the  time  of  his  brother's  death  he 
had  devoted  himself  in  every  way  to  the  effort  to  fill 
a  double  place  and  make  up  to  his  parents  for  the 
loss  of  the  elder  son.  Only  those  nearest  him  can 
appreciate  fully  the  extent  of  this  unselfish  devotion 
or  of  the  personal  sacrifices  he  made  so  cheerfully, 
especially  during  his  father's  declining  years.  Like 
many  other  duties,  it  was  fulfilled  by  him  simply, 
lovingly,  generously. 

When  comparative  freedom  from  these  absorbing 
cares  again  was  his,  he  once  more  entered  politics 
and  came  forward  in  the  hour  of  defeat  to  help  his 
party  by  accepting  the  presidency  of  the  Republican 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  199 

Club  of  Massachusetts,  to  which  his  leadership  gave 
a  strong  impetus.  This  was  in  1891,  and  in  the 
following  year  (1892)  he  was  nominated  by  the 
Kepublican  convention  as  their  candidate  for  lieuten 
ant-governor  and  was  elected.  The  defeat  of  the 
Republican  candidate  for  governor  made  Mr.  Wol- 
cott,  although  holding  only  the  second  place  in  the 
government,  the  official  head  of  the  party  at  the 
State  House.  The  position  was  a  delicate  and  diffi 
cult  one,  for  the  powers  of  the  lieutenant-governor 
are  constitutionally  very  limited,  and  yet  much  was 
expected  of  him  under  the  existing  conditions.  Mr. 
Wolcott's  judgment  and  capacity  for  leadership  were 
put  to  an  immediate  test  by  the  question  which  was 
raised  as  to  the  ultimate  power  of  the  Council  in  re 
gard  to  its  own  committees.  The  governor  under 
took  to  make  it  appear  that  the  claim  of  the  Council 
was  a  mere  political  device  intended  to  hamper  the 
executive  for  partisan  reasons.  This  view  was  spe 
cious  and  well  calculated  to  draw  an  unthinking  sup 
port,  but  Mr.  Wolcott  was  not  to  be  deterred  by  a 
cry  of  partisanship  from  deciding  the  question  on  its 
merits.  He  sustained  the  view  of  the  Council,  and 
took  the  broad  ground  that  the  appointment  of  com 
mittees  must  always  rest  ultimately  in  the  body 
from  which  they  are  to  be  chosen.  His  brief  state 
ment  of  the  case,  which  he  put  upon  the  record,  was 
at  once  clear  and  unanswerable.  The  attempt  to 


200      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

make  his  action  obnoxious  as  the  result  of  unscru 
pulous  partisanship  fell  to  the  ground,  for  no  man 
was  more  free  from  such  tendencies  than  he.  Mr. 
Wolcott  was  never  extreme,  and  political  bitterness 
was  impossible  to  him.  By  nature  he  was  broad 
and  tolerant,  and  he  was  too  independent  and  too 
exacting  in  his  ideals  ever  to  be  an  unreasoning 
partisan.  Yet  no  man  was  ever  more  deeply  wedded 
to  the  great  beliefs  and  fundamental  principles  of 
the  party  in  which  he  had  been  born  and  bred,  and 
which  he  supported  steadily  and  strongly  through 
out  his  life.  He  valued  and  cherished  personal  in 
dependence,  but  he  did  not  confound  independence 
with  bitter  and  chaotic  opposition  to  everything 
which  exists,  and  he  understood  history  too  well  not 
to  be  aware  that  representative  government  has  been 
more  or  less  a  failure  in  every  country  where  the 
system  of  two  great  and  responsible  parties,  one  of 
government  and  one  of  opposition,  has  not  prevailed 
as  it  always  has  prevailed  among  the  English-speaking 
people. 

In  his  speech  to  the  Republican  Club  on  April  8, 
1891,  Mr.  Wolcott  defined  his  position  on  the  ques 
tion  of  political  parties  and  personal  independence, 
and  in  these  vigorous  sentences  he  laid  down  the 
principle  by  which  he  himself  was  guided.  He  said 
on  that  occasion  :  "  No  word  of  mine  shall  ever  be 
uttered  to  depreciate  that  robust  and  virile  inde- 


ROGER   WOLCOTT  201 

pendence  in  politics  which  holds  country  and  honor 
above  party,  which,  while  acting  within  party  lines, 
ever  strives  to  secure  the  best  in  men  and  measures, 
and,  often  buffeted  and  defeated,  never  ceases  to 
wage  war  upon  dishonesty  and  chicanery,  using 
party  as  a  weapon,  but  never  wearing  it  as  a  yoke. 
But  the  independent,  who  prides  himself  upon  being 
a  total  abstainer,  until  the  day  of  election,  from  all 
lot  or  part  in  political  movements,  should  be  treated 
as  those  who  skulk  when  the  bugle  sounds." 

In  1893  Mr.  Wolcott  was  renominated  for  lieu 
tenant  governor,  with  Mr.  Greenhalge  as  the  candi 
date  for  governor.  Both  were  elected,  and  the  same 
ticket  was  renominated  and  re-elected  in  1894  and 
1895  by  large  and  increasing  majorities.  On  March 
5,  1896,  Governor  Greenhalge,  honored  and  beloved, 
died  in  office,  and  Mr.  Wolcott  became  the  acting 
governor  of  the  Commonwealth.  He  assumed  the 
office  of  the  chief  executive  under  sad  circumstances, 
which  no  one  felt  more  deeply  than  he,  for  he  was 
sincerely  attached  to  his  associate  and  predecessor. 
But  he  came  to  his  new  place  possessed  of  an  unusual 
familiarity  with  all  its  duties,  drawn  from  nearly 
four  years  of  experience  as  lieutenant-governor. 
The  affairs  of  the  State  moved  on  smoothly  and 
easily  under  his  guidance,  without  any  sign  of 
disturbance. 

In  the  autumn  of  1896  Mr.  Wolcott  was  imam- 


202  THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

mously  nominated  by  the  Republican  convention  as 
their  candidate  for  governor.  No  one  else  indeed 
was  mentioned,  or  even  thought  of.  Not  merely  had 
he  borne  himself  so  well  as  acting  governor  that  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  have  displaced  him, 
but  in  his  years  of  service  as  lieutenant-governor  he 
had  established  himself  firmly  in  the  good  opinion  of 
the  people,  and  had  gained  a  strong  hold  upon  their 
affection.  In  these  years  they  had  come  to  know 
him.  He  had  appeared  much  in  public,  and  had 
made  speeches  on  many  subjects,  by  no  means  con 
fined  to  the  political  questions  of  the  day.  Always 
dignified,  thoughtful,  and  interesting,  he  grew  and 
developed  with  constant  practice  until  he  became 
one  of  the  best  speakers  in  the  State.  Gifted  with  a 
commanding  presence  and  a  powerful,  ringing  voice, 
he  at  once  held  the  attention  of  his  audiences.  He 
had  an  ample  vocabulary  and  a  cultivated  style  and 
diction.  On  the  many  occasions  and  celebrations  at 
which  our  governors  are  expected  to  appear  he  not 
only  always  said  something  worth  hearing,  some 
thing  serious  and  weighty,  showing  alike  good  sense 
and  careful  thought,  but  he  was  graceful  arid  felici 
tous,  and  had  a  capacity  for  happy  humor  with  which 
he  was  largely  and  fortunately  endowed.  In  dis 
cussing  the  great  questions  of  the  day  relating  to  the 
tariff  and  the  currency  he  showed  himself  master  of 
his  subject,  and  his  arguments  were  cogent  and  well 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  203 

knit,  effective  and  convincing.  He  put  his  points 
sharply  and  strongly,  often  with  a  glow  of  eloquence, 
and  sometimes  with  epigram matic  force,  as  when  at 
the  ratification  meeting  of  1896  he  spoke  of  the 
"  honor  Democrats,"  a  phrase  which  went  all  over 
the  country.  When  he  became  acting  governor  he 
had  already  demonstrated  to  the  State  not  only  his 
character  and  his  fitness  for  public  affairs,  but  he  had 
proved  that  he  was  an  eloquent  speaker,  and  able  to 
deal  as  a  statesman  with  the  largest  public  questions. 
Thus  the  nomination  for  the  first  place  went  to  him 
by  general  accord,  and  with  the  most  widespread  and 
genuine  enthusiasm.  He  took  a  leading  part  in  the 
great  national  campaign  of  that  year  in  Massachu 
setts,  and  was  elected  by  a  phenomenal  majority,  the 
largest  ever  given  to  a  governor. 

Mr.  Wolcott  held  the  governorship  for  three  years, 
being  re-elected  by  majorities  surpassed  only  by  that 
which  he  himself  received  in  1896.  Owing  to  the 
growth  of  population,  the  duties  of  the  chief  execu 
tive  of  Massachusetts  have  greatly  increased  of  late 
years,  and  now  entail  a  heavy  burden  of  work  upon 
any  man  with  a  strong  sense  of  responsibility.  This 
feeling  of  responsibility  was  especially  keen  in  Gov 
ernor  Wolcott.  Every  interest  of  the  State  was  the 
subject  of  his  personal  and  thoughtful  care.  Prisons, 
asylums,  and  reformatories,  the  care  of  the  poor,  the 
criminal  and  the  insane,  schools,  railroads,  gas  and 


204      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

insurance,  harbors  and  lands,  municipal  government, 
parks,  water,  roads,  and  the  enforcement  of  law, — 
all  these  matters  and  many  others  demanded  knowl 
edge,  study,  and  care,  and  all  received  them  from 
him  in  full  measure.  He  never  shirked  or  neglected 
anything.  Many  difficult  and  debated  questions  of 
legislation  also  arose,  and  every  law  sent  to  him 
received  his  thorough  consideration.  He  never 
sought  to  shift  responsibility  upon  the  legislature, 
but  took  always  his  entire  share  as  part  of  the  law- 
making  power.  More  than  once  he  felt  obliged  to 
differ  from  the  legislature,  and  he  was  always  ready 
when  it  seemed  to  him  his  duty  to  use  the  veto. 
These  questions  are  still  too  near  to  be  discussed  on 
their  merits  here,  even  if  time  permitted  and  it  were 
appropriate  to  do  so.  But  I  think  no  one  can  read 
over  those  veto  messages  and  not  be  struck  by  their 
clearness  and  force  and  impressed  by  their  sound 
reasoning.  Governor  Wolcott  was  not  only  wisely 
cautious,  but  he  was  almost  morbidly  anxious  to  be 
exactly  just  in  dealing  with  any  disputed  question. 
He  would  weigh  and  consider  all  arguments,  and 
look  at  both  sides,  but  when  he  had  reached  his  con 
clusion,  when  he  had  made  up  his  mind  as  to  where 
his  duty  lay,  he  was  entirely  fearless,  and  signed  or 
vetoed,  as  the  case  might  be,  without  any  regard  for 
consequences.  In  his  messages  and  State  papers  it 
is  easy  to  discern  the  consistent  policy  which  runs 


ROGER   WOLCOTT  205 

through  them  all.  He  looked  for  guidance  to  the 
interests  of  the  State  and  to  the  broad  political  prin 
ciples  in  which  he  believed.  When  he  had  once 
made  up  his  mind  in  what  direction  these  public 
interests  lay,  he  was  not  to  be  turned  aside  either  by 
the  pressure  of  great  corporations,  or  by  clamor  from 
without,  or  by  anxiety  as  to  the  effect  of  his  action 
upon  his  own  fortunes.  Righteousness  and  the  wel 
fare  of  the  Commonwealth  in  all  questions,  whether 
personal  or  political,  were,  when  doubt  and  conflict 
arose,  his  ultimate  guides,  the  oracles  from  whose 
decisions  there  was  no  appeal. 

The  administration  of  the  ordinary  business  of  the 
State  is  enough  to  test  any  man's  strength  or  make 
any  man's  reputation,  but  to  Mr.  Wolcott  there  came 
a  burden  and  a  trial  which  are  not  imposed  more 
than  once  in  a  generation  upon  the  governor  of  a 
State.  His  term  of  office  came  at  the  moment  when 
the  nation  entered  upon  a  new  epoch  in  its  history. 
In  1898  war  was  declared  with  Spain,  and  the  Presi 
dent  called  for  troops.  The  manner  in  which  Massa 
chusetts  responded  was  in  keeping  with  her  past,  and 
added  a  new  glory  to  her  history.  As  in  the  Revolu 
tion  and  the  Civil  War,  she  offered  the  national 
government  more  than  her  quota,  and  place  could 
not  be  found  for  all  the  regiments  and  batteries 
which  sought  service.  The  thorough  equipment  of 
the  Massachusetts  troops,  and  the  rapidity  with 


206   THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

which  they  went  forward  in  complete  readiness  for 
service  gratified  and  surprised  the  government  at 
Washington.  All  this  is  history  and  known  of  all 
men,  but  that  which  is  not  so  well  understood  is  the 
extent  to  which  the  condition  of  the  regiments  and 
the  rapidity  of  their  mobilization  were  due  to  the 
watchful  care  and  unresting  energy  of  the  governor. 
We  had  an  excellent  militia  and  a  fine  and  well- 
trained  staff,  but  in  military  matters  more  depends 
upon  the  chief  than  in  any  other  department.  Gov 
ernor  Wolcott  supervised  everything,  and  his  spirit 
informed  all  those  who  obeyed  his  orders.  He  sent 
in  a  message  asking  for  an  emergency  fund  of  half 
a  million  dollars,  and  in  twenty-five  minutes  the 
bill  had  passed  both  Houses  and  the  money  was  in 
his  hands,  a  mark  of  confidence  in  him  as  fine  as  the 
unhesitating  patriotism  of  the  legislature  in  the 
presence  of  war. 

But  the  governor's  duties  did  not  stop  there.  It 
was  for  him  to  spend  the  money  and  carry  on  the 
work.  He  went  to  every  camp  and  quickened  every 
movement,  he  thought  and  labored  for  the  equip 
ment,  and  it  was  his  voice  which  bade  the  soldiers 
God-speed,  and  in  lofty  and  inspiring  words  sent 
them  forth  to  fight  for  their  country  with  the  bless 
ing  of  Massachusetts  upon  them.  He  kept  the  same 
watch  over  the  soldiers  in  the  field,  and  when  they 
returned  from  the  war,  many  of  them  wasted  with 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  207 

fever,  he  was  the  first  to  meet  them  on  the  transport 
or  the  railroad  train,  the  first  to  greet  them  and  to 
say  to  them,  "  Well  done,"  in  the  name  of  the  Com 
monwealth.  He  went  among  them,  stood  by  their 
cots,  gentle  and  sympathetic  as  a  woman,  strong  and 
encouraging  as  a  man.  With  his  own  hands  he  min 
istered  to  them,  and  from  his  own  purse  he  often  fed 
them ;  he  aided  them  in  every  way,  he  was  much 
more  than  their  commander,  he  was  their  friend.  In 
all  his  career  of  distinguished  public  service  I  like 
best  to  think  of  Roger  Wolcott  as  he  appeared  at 
that  moment ;  and  the  recollection  of  that  gracious, 
stately  figure  among  the  sick,  the  wounded,  and  the 
dying,  bringing  hope  and  comfort  with  the  authority 
of  high  place  and  the  tenderness  of  love,  will  ever  be 
one  of  the  cherished  and  beautiful  memories  of 
Massachusetts. 

In  January,  1900,  Mr.  Wolcott  retired  from  the 
governorship.  For  seven  years  he  had  been  in  the 
service  of  the  State,  and  during  the  last  four  his 
work  had  been  anxious  and  incessant.  He  went 
with  his  family  to  Europe  for  a  much-needed,  well- 
earned  rest.  He  was  in  the  prime  of  his  powers,  as 
vigorous  physically  as  he  was  mentally,  for  he  had 
always  lived  a  wholesome  life,  and  was  a  lover  of 
outdoor  air  and  exercise  and  an  admirable  rider. 
Every  one  looked  forward  to  his  having  many  years 
before  him  of  distinguished  service  in  the  larger 


208     THREE  GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

national  field,  and  with  his  ripe  experience  winning 
fresh  honors  for  himself  and  for  the  State.  Oppor 
tunities  indeed  came  quickly.  President  McKinley 
asked  him  to  be  a  commissioner  to  the  Philippines, 
one  of  the  most  important  places  in  the  whole  range 
of  statesmanship,  but  private  reasons  obliged  him  to 
decline.  Later  in  the  summer,  when  General  Draper, 
to  the  regret  of  every  one,  resigned,  I  had  the  pleas 
ure  of  joining  with  Senator  Hoar  in  the  request  that 
Governor  Wolcott  might  be  sent  to  Rome.  The 
President  immediately  offered  him  the  Italian  em 
bassy,  and  I  longed  to  have  him  take  it,  not  because 
he  was  my  friend,  but  because  I  felt  so  much  pride 
in  the  thought  of  having  the  United  States  repre 
sented  in  Europe  by  such  a  man.  Again,  however, 
he  was  compelled  to  refuse  on  account  of  personal 
and  family  reasons.  He  returned  to  Boston  in  time 
to  make  one  speech  for  his  party  and  to  cast  his  vote 
for  President  McKinley.  It  was  a  joy  to  have  him 
again  among  us,  looking  so  well  and  with  so  much 
promise  for  a  brilliant  future. 

"  The  hope  of  unaccomplished  years 
Seemed  large  and  lucid  round  his  brow." 

But  it  was  not  to  be.     The  hand  of  death  was  on 
him  even  then.     Before  the  year  closed  he  was  gone, 
and  the  whole  State  was  mourning  by  his  grave. 
To  tell  the  story  of  a  life  filled  with  action  and 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  209 

achievement  within  the  limits  of  an  address  such  as 
this  is  impossible.  No  one  knows  how  inadequate, 
how  barren  the  meagre  outline  is,  so  well  as  he  who 
attempts  it.  Yet  it  is  still  possible  to  learn  some 
thing,  even  from  the  dry  facts  so  hurriedly  rehearsed. 
Here  was  a  man  born  to  all  that  men  most  desire. 
He  was  strong,  handsome,  vigorous  in  mind  and 
body.  He  had  wealth  and  position.  He  was  fortu 
nate  in  his  birth,  fortunate  in  his  ancestry,  thrice 
fortunate  in  his  marriage  and  in  his  home.  Here 
was  strong  temptation  to  ease,  to  repose,  to  self- 
indulgence,  or  to  an  existence  of  cultured  leisure. 
They  were  all  put  aside  for  an  active,  earnest  life, 
filled  with  hard  work.  At  the  very  beginning  it 
seems  as  if  he  had  taken  as  his  rule  the  injunction 
which  Dante  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Ulysses  : 

"  Considerate  la  vostra  semenza, 
Fatti  non  foste  a  viver  come  bruti, 
Ma  per  seguir  virtude  e  conoscenza." 

When  all  is  done  it  looks  simple  enough,  but  only 
a  man  of  strong  will  and  determined  purpose  can  do 
it.  Some  one  may  say  that  ambition  was  the  cause. 
Every  man  who  comes  to  anything  has  the  righteous 
ambition  to  do  something  in  the  world  and  to  do  it 
well,  but  that  is  a  quality,  not  a  cause,  and  too  often 
ends  in  ineffectual  longing.  Ambition  is  but  a 
shallow  explanation.  Remember  that  the  seven 

14 


210     THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

years  of  high  place  and  large  powers  were  preceded 
by  more  than  twenty  years  of  hard  work  for  the 
public  service,  both  in  private  and  political  life ; 
work  without  personal  gain,  and  which  might  never 
bring  any  outward  reward.  The  truth  lies  deeper 
than  this.  Roger  Wolcott  felt  instinctively  that 
every  man  owes  a  debt  to  his  country,  and  that  the 
greater  the  gifts  of  fortune  the  larger  the  debt,  the 
heavier  the  responsibility.  That  debt  he  meant  to 
pay,  that  responsibility  he  meant  to  meet,  and  so  he 
turned  from  ease  and  pleasure  to  hard  work  for 
public  ends.  This  is  a  noble  and  just  conception  of 
a  man's  duty,  nowhere  so  necessary  as  in  this  Re 
public,  and  it  was  his  in  full  measure.  To  those 
placed  as  he  was  at  the  opening  of  life  I  would  say, 
Look  well  upon  him  and  strive  to  imitate  him,  re 
membering  that  great  as  were  the  honors  he  won, 
that  which  was  better  than  place  or  title  was  the 
high  ideal  of  duty  as  a  man  and  as  a  citizen,  which 
led  him  to  put  aside  all  temptations  to  ease  and 
quiet  and  go  down  into  the  arena  of  life  to  fight  a 
good  fight  in  the  great  world  of  men. 

He  was  well  equipped  for  the  struggle.  He  had 
health  and  strength,  natural  ability,  a  liberal  educa 
tion,  a  vigorous,  well-trained  mind,  always  alert  and 
open,  great  capacity  for  work,  and  an  industry  which 
never  failed.  One  essential  condition  of  success  in 
such  a  career  as  Mr.  Wolcott's  is  the  capacity  to  deal 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  211 

with  other  men,  and  this  quality  was  his  in  abun 
dance.  He  was  simple  and  democratic  in  his  ways, 
with  the  manners  of  a  thorough  man  of  the  world, 
always  attractive,  easy,  and  without  pretence,  and 
yet  never  undignified  or  weakly  familiar.  Here,  too, 
his  strong  sense  of  humor  and  love  of  fun  were  of 
inestimable  service  to  him  as  they  are  to  all  men,  for 
those  who  possess  them  are  saved  from  that  most 
fatal  of  errors,  taking  one's  self  too  seriously  and 
mistaking  one's  relation  to  the  universe.  He  was 
entirely  free  from  the  small  vanities  and  jealousies 
and  the  morbid  absorption  in  self  which  are  the 
bane  of  so  many  excellent  persons  in  all  walks  of 
public  life,  and  which  do  more  to  alienate  friends  and 
give  lasting  offence  than  much  more  serious  faults. 
All  these  qualities  commended  him  to  his  fellow-men, 
but  that  which  won  most  was  his  clear  common- 
sense  and  honesty  of  judgment,  quickly  felt  by  all 
who  were  engaged  with  him  in  serious  affairs,  either 
of  public  or  private  business. 

More  valuable  still  was  the  fact  that  he  kept 
always  an  open  mind.  He  was  ready  to  learn  and 
did  learn  as  he  advanced,  and  was  always  growing 
and  developing.  His  opinions  never  hardened  into 
prejudices,  new  questions  and  policies  did  not  frighten 
him,  and  as  he  grew  older,  instead  of  stiffening,  he 
became  more  kindly  and  more  tolerant.  Nothing  illus 
trates  this  better  than  his  feeling  about  his  country 


212     THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

and  his  people.  Intensely  patriotic  by  nature,  stimu 
lated  in  patriotism  by  his  bringing  up  and  by  his 
brother's  death,  his  feeling  about  his  country  and  a 
man's  duty  to  it  shines  forth  in  the  words  which  I 
have  quoted  from  his  class  oration.  Then  he  had 
thirty  years  of  experience  in  the  rough,  eager,  com 
bative  world  of  this  young  and  mighty  democracy. 
It  made  him  neither  hard  nor  cynical,  nor  a  slave  to 
that  dangerous  wisdom  which  sneers  and  doubts. 
This  wide  experience  among  men  wrought  with  him, 
as  I  think  it  must  always  work  with  every  open,  just, 
and  generous  mind,  and  near  the  close  of  his  life  he 
said  in  a  speech :  "  If  I  have  learned  nothing  else 
since  I  have  held  office,  I  have  learned  to  believe  in 
the  American  people.  I  have  learned  to  believe  that 
virtue  is  more  common  than  vice,  that  noble  man 
hood  and  womanhood  have  not  died  out  among  us. 
I  believe  God  has  made  the  law  of  progress,  not  a 
law  of  retrogression,  and  I  urge  you  young  men  not 
to  give  way  to  pessimism.  Be  courageous,  be  hope 
ful.  Believe  in  the  destiny  of  America,  believe  in 
the  purpose  of  Almighty  God,  believe  with  all  hope 
in  the  future."  This  is  not  the  shallow  optimism  of 
respectable  "  gigmanity  "  which  thinks  everything  is 
for  the  best  in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  and 
upon  which  Voltaire  turned  his  fatal  smile.  It  is 
the  faith  of  a  man  who  knows  well  that  there  is 
much  wrong,  much  suffering,  much  sin  in  the  world, 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  213 

who  has  striven  to  make  his  corner  of  it  better  and 
brighter,  and  who  has  come  through  the  trial  with  a 
larger  hope,  and  a  profounder  belief  in  the  American 
people  and  in  their  capacity  for  great  tasks,  with  a 
deeper  love  for  his  country,  and  an  assured  confidence 
in  the  future  of  his  race. 

This  faith  in  his  people  and  his  country  made  the 
people  trust  Governor  Wolcott,  for  they  refuse  their 
confidence  to  those  who  distrust  them.  But  there 
were  other  and  deeper  reasons  for  their  faith  in  him 
and  for  the  love  they  bore  him,  which  has  been  so 
strikingly  manifested  since  his  death.  They  recog 
nized  his  ability,  his  eloquence,  his  industry,  his  con 
scientiousness,  his  entire  fitness  for  high  place,  his 
fearlessness  when  duty  spoke  to  him.  Yet  it  was 
something  other  than  these  great  qualities  which 
appealed  to  them  most  of  all.  He  was  a  good  man. 
I  know  the  ready  sneer  which  too  often  greets  these 
words  in  this  world  of  ours.  If  hypocrisy  is  the 
homage  which  vice  pays  to  virtue,  it  is  equally  true 
that  there  is  the  hypocrisy  of  evil  which  is  the 
tribute  timid  virtue  pays  to  vice.  Hence  the  ready 
sneer.  Yet  when  one  of  the  greatest  geniuses  of  the 
last  century  and  one  of  the  bravest  of  men  lay  dying, 
the  best  he  could  find  to  say  to  a  man  he  loved  as 
his  son  was,  "  Be  a  good  man,  my  dear."  Was  there 
ever  a  more  tender  or  a  better  message  from  any 
human  death-ded  ?  I  think  not,  and  I  know  well 


214      THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

that  the  goodness  which  Walter  Scott  intended,  and 
which  we  all  reverence  in  our  hearts  even  if  we  close 
our  lips,  was  not  that  narrow  self-righteousness 
which  is  as  worthless  as  the  tinkling  cymbal,  but  the 
goodness  which  includes  among  its  chief  virtues  a 
large  and  gentle  charity  toward  others. 

Such  was  the  goodness  of  Governor  Wolcott.  The 
bright  mirror  of  his  life  was  never  dimmed  by  the 
faintest  breath  of  reproach.  What  he  seemed,  that 
he  was,  and  the  people  knew  it.  They  knew,  too, 
that  he  had  courage ;  I  do  not  mean  physical  courage 
or  moral  courage,  both  of  which  were  his,  but  just  the 
plain  courage  which  resists  temptation  by  instinct,  as 
a  man  defends  his  mother  or  his  wife.  He  might 
make  mistakes  ;  all  successful  men,  doers  of  deeds, 
are  sure  to  make  them.  "  To  err  is  human."  But 
whatever  chanced,  the  people  of  Massachusetts  knew 
that  there  were  certain  things  of  which  Roger  Wol 
cott  was  utterly  incapable.  Whatever  he  did  or  did 
not  do,  they  knew  that  no  mean,  base  motive,  no 
personal  or  illicit  gain,  no  degrading  hope,  could 
ever  move  him  or  ever  be  possible  to  him.  "  What 
ever  record  leaped  to  light,  he  never  could  be 
shamed."  The  people  knew  all  this,  knew  it  by 
their  wise  instinct,  and  so  they  loved  and  trusted 
Governor  Wolcott  with  a  rare  confidence  and 
affection. 

They  were  proud  of  him,  too,  as  they  had  good 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  215 

reason  to  be.  They  liked  to  look  upon  such  a  gov 
ernor,  and  they  liked  to  think  that  the  State  on 
great  occasions  was  represented  beyond  its  own 
borders  and  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  by  such  a  man. 
The  feeling  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts  in  regard 
to  their  governors  is  a  strong  and  peculiar  one.  The 
State  has  a  respect  and  an  admiration  for  its  chief 
magistrate  which  exist  in  no  such  degree  elsewhere. 
The  sentiment  is  an  honor  to  State  and  people.  It  is 
traditional  and  deep  rooted.  It  is  also  well  founded. 
We  have  had  governors  in  this  Commonwealth  now 
for  nearly  three  centuries.  The  list  is  a  long  one, 
but  I  do  not  believe  that  anywhere  in  the  world  is  to 
be  found  a  line  of  chief  magistrates  of  equal  length 
where  you  can  discover  so  little  that  is  unworthy,  so 
little  that  is  commonplace,  so  much  that  is  eminent 
and  honorable  and  of  good  report.  The  standard  is 
a  high  one.  The  succession  is  a  just  pride  to  the 
State.  To  lower  that  standard  would  be  grievous. 
To  maintain  it  is  much  for  any  man  to  do.  To  lift 
it  still  higher  is  given  to  few.  Yet  this,  I  think, 
Roger  Wolcott  did.  He  added  new  lustre  to  that 
shining  roll,  and  earned  the  right  to  be  named 
among  the  chosen  few  where  Andrew  and  Winthrop 
stand  together.  All  this,  again,  the  people  knew 
well.  Need  we  wonder  that  they  loved  Governor 
Wolcott,  and  that  as  they  loved  him  so  also  they  were 
proud  of  him  ?  The  love  and  pride  of  the  people 


216     THREE   GOVERNORS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

whom  he  served,  the  devotion  of  the  loyal  friends  so 
loved  by  him,  an  unblemished  record,  a  life  filled 
with  good  work  done  and  with  honorable  achieve 
ments  which  have  passed  now  into  the  history  of 
State  and  country,  here  are  titles  and  distinctions 
with  which  those  who  most  honor  his  memory  may 
well  be  content. 

Yet  the  greatest  is  behind,  for  we  can  say  with 
truth  of  Roger  Wolcott  that  he  is  most  highly 
to  be  praised  and  most  fondly  to  be  remembered 
for  what  he  was  rather  than  for  what  he  did. 
Greater  honor  hath  no  man  than  this,  to  be  loved 
and  honored  and  held  in  memory,  not  so  much 
for  the  deeds  he  did,  or  the  great  places  he  filled, 
or  even  for  the  work  he  wrought,  as  for  what  he 
himself  was  as  a  man.  There  is  a  type  of  man 
which  we  of  the  English-speaking  people  hold  in 
especial  honor,  and  like  to  think,  justly,  as  I  believe, 
peculiar  to  our  race  and  history.  It  is  a  type  which 
knows  neither  class  nor  rank.  The  man  may  be 
rich  or  poor,  humble  or  great,  the  champion  of  vil 
lage  rights  or  the  defender  of  a  nation's  liberties. 
But  all  such  men  have  certain  traits  in  common  : 
simplicity  of  character,  willingness  to  bear  the  bur 
dens  of  the  community,  to  do  their  public  duty 
wherever  it  may  lead,  and  always  without  personal 
ambition  or  thought  of  self.  It  may  be  John  Brown, 
the  poor  Scotch  carrier,  shot  down  by  Claverhouse  as 


ROGER  WOLCOTT  217 

he  lifts  his  hands  in  prayer,  or  that  other  John 
Brown,  walking  to  the  gallows  in  Virginia,  or 
Sydney  on  the  scaffold,  or  Robert  Shaw  falling  upon 
the  slopes  of  Wagner.  They  may  come  to  martyr 
dom  or  death  in  battle,  or  they  may  never  go  beyond 
the  peaceful  service  of  their  native  town,  or  the 
higher  service  of  poor  and  suffering  humanity. 
Their  light  may  shine  before  men,  or  do  no  more 
than  warm  and  brighten  some  little  corner.  Com 
manding  ability  or  high  genius  may  be  given  or 
denied  to  them,  but  great  character  must  always  be 
theirs  and  perfect  readiness  to  serve  their  fellow-men, 
whether  in  the  sheltered  times  of  peace  or  in  the 
hour  of  fierce  trial,  when  the  last  sacrifice  may  be 
demanded. 

The  great  exemplars  in  history  of  the  type  I  mean, 
and  of  which  description  is  so  difficult,  are  Hampden 
and  Washington,  the  one  a  country  gentleman  of 
moderate  talent  and  slight  achievement,  the  other 
one  of  the  greatest  leaders,  soldiers,  and  statesmen  of 
all  time ;  but  both  alike  in  their  ready  self-sacrifice 
to  the  public  weal,  in  their  ideals  of  conduct,  in  their 
performance  of  duty  without  hope  or  desire  of  place 
or  power,  shine  out  upon  the  pages  of  history.  It  is 
one  of  the  glories  of  our  race  that  such  men  have 
never  been  lacking  in  our  history,  and  in  this  noble 
company  I  think  Roger  Wolcott  stands.  May  we 
not  rejoice  that  in  the  nineteenth  century  New  Eng- 


218  THREE  GOVERNORS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS 

land  could  breed  such  a  man,  and  must  we  not  re 
joice  still  more  that  a  man  of  this  fine  type  and 
nature  commanded  the  affection,  the  trust,  and  the 
pride  of  this  proud  old  State  ?  Profound  gratitude 
for  a  life  and  character  like  this  mingles  with  our 
sorrow  as  we  stand  by  his  untimely  grave. 

"  Lofty  designs  must  close  in  like  effects ; 

Loftily  lying, 

Leave  him  —  still  loftier  than  the  world  suspects, 
Living  and  dying." 


THE  TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF 
THE  SENATE 

THE  action  of  the  Senate  upon  the  first  Hay- 
Pauncefote  treaty  in  December,  1900,  gave  rise  to 
much  discussion  not  only  in  regard  to  the  merits  of 
the  treaty  and  of  the  Senate  amendments,  but  also  as 
to  the  rights  and  functions  of  the  Senate  as  part  of 
the  treaty-making  power.  That  there  should  be  dif 
ferences  of  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of  the  questions 
involved  in  the  treaty  is  entirely  natural,  but  it 
seems  strange  that  there  should  be  any  misapprehen 
sion  as  to  the  functions  and  powers  of  the  Senate, 
because  those  are  not  matters  of  opinion  but  well- 
established  facts,  simple  in  themselves  and  clearly 
defined  both  by  law  and  precedent.  Yet  such  mis 
apprehension  not  only  existed  but  was  manifested 
here  and  there  in  the  United  States  by  statements 
and  arguments  as  confident  as  they  were  erroneous. 
The  English  newspapers,  as  a  rule,  of  course  did 
not  know  anything  about  the  powers  of  the  Sen 
ate,  but  seemed  to  have  a  general  belief  that  the 
Senate  amendments  were  in  some  way  a  gross 
breach  of  faith,  a  view  not  susceptible  of  explana- 


220      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

tion,  but  very  soothing  to  those  who  held  it,  and 
quite  characteristic.  It  is,  however,  a  much  more 
serious  matter  when  misapprehension  of  this  kind 
is  found  among  those  who  are  charged  with  the 
conduct  of  government.  It  is  their  duty  and 
their  business  to  understand  thoroughly  the  in 
stitutions,  constitutional  provisions,  and  political 
methods  of  other  countries  with  which  they  are 
obliged  to  have  dealings  and  to  maintain  relations. 
We  have  a  right  to  expect  that  Lord  Lansdowne,  a 
statesman  of  long  experience,  who  has  held  some  of 
the  highest  offices  under  the  British  Crown,  who  has 
been  advanced  from  the  great  post  of  Secretary  of 
War  to  the  still  greater  one  of  Secretary  of  State  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  should  understand  thoroughly  the 
constitutional  provisions  and  modes  of  governmental 
procedure  in  the  United  States.  Yet  we  find  in  Lord 
Lansdowne's  note  to  Lord  Pauncefote  of  February 
22,  1901,  in  reference  to  the  Senate  amendments  the 
following  statement : 

"  The  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  is  an  international 
contract  of  unquestioned  validity  ;  a  contract  which, 
according  to  well-established  international  usage, 
ought  not  to  be  abrogated  or  modified  save  with  the 
consent  of  both  the  parties  to  the  contract.  His 
Majesty's  Government  find  themselves  confronted 
with  a  proposal  communicated  to  them  by  the  United 
States  Government,  without  any  previous  attempt  to 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      221 

ascertain   their   views,    for   the   abrogation   of    the 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty." 

The  meaning  of  this  passage,  taken  as  a  whole,  is 
not  very  clear,  and  in  the  last  clause  it  contains  at 
least  one  singular  proposition.  Admitting  the  inter 
national  usage  to  be  as  Lord  Lansdowne  states  it, 
the  Hay-Pauncefote  negotiation  conformed  to  it 
strictly.  The  sole  purpose  of  the  Hay-Pauncefote 
treaty  was  to  modify,  by  amicable  agreement,  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty.  So  far  as  the  Hay-Paunce 
fote  treaty  went,  it  modified  the  Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty,  and  to  that  extent  superseded  it.  How  far  it 
superseded  it  was  a  disputed  point.  It  was  strongly 
argued  here  that  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  ex  neces 
sitate  superseded  entirely  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty, 
and  those  Senators  who  advocated  the  insertion  of 
the  words  "  which  is  hereby  superseded  "  were  gen 
erally  held  to  be  over-cautious.  It  was,  in  fact,  this 
division  of  opinion  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  had  been  superseded  which 
led  to  the  adoption  of  the  first  Senate  amendment, 
but  Lord  Lansdowne's  note  shows  that  those  who 
desired  a  specific  statement  of  the  supersession  of 
the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  were  right  in  their  con 
struction,  that  the  supersession  was  not  complete  as 
the  Hay-Pa imcefote  treaty  originally  stood.1 

1  The  second  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  embodied  all  the  principles 
contained  in  the  Senate  amendments  to  the  first  treaty,  and  was  rati 
fied,  December  16,  1901,  by  a  vote  of  72  to  6. 


222      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

The  point,  however,  to  which  I  wish  to  draw  at 
tention  here  is  quite  different  from  the  question  of 
the  supersession  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  in 
whole  or  in  part  by  the  first  Ilay-Pauncefote  treaty, 
and  is  contained  in  the  last  sentence  of  the  passage 
I  have  quoted.  Lord  Lansdowne  there  complains 
that  his  Government  is  confronted  by  a  proposal 
from  the  United  States  without  any  previous  at 
tempt  to  ascertain  their  views.  Here  is  where 
his  misapprehension  of  our  Constitution  appears. 
If  Mr.  Hay  had  proposed  to  Lord  Pauncefote,  at 
any  stage  of  their  discussion,  to  insert  clauses  like 
the  Senate  amendments,  the  proposal  might  have 
been  accepted  or  rejected,  but  no  complaint  would 
or  could  have  been  made  that  His  Majesty's  Gov 
ernment  was  confronted  by  a  proposal  upon  which 
their  views  had  not  been  previously  ascertained. 
Such  propositions,  coming  from  Mr.  Hay,  would 
have  been  entirely  germane  to  the  purpose  of  the 
negotiation,  even  if  they  had  extended  to  a  simple, 
wholly  unconditional  abrogation  of  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  treaty,  and  would  have  been  so  recognized. 
What  actually  happened  was  that  these  propositions 
were  offered  at  a  later  stage  of  the  negotiation  by 
the  other  part  of  the  American  treaty-making  power 
in  the  only  manner  in  which  they  could  then  be 
offered,  and  are  therefore  no  more  a  subject  of  just 
complaint  on  account  of  the  manner  of  their  presen- 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      223 

tation  than  if  they  had  been  put  forward  at  an 
earlier  stage  by  Mr.  Hay.  If  we  follow  the  negotia 
tion  through  its  different  phases,  what  has  just  been 
stated  becomes  apparent.  Mr.  Hay  and  Lord  Paunce- 
fote  open  a  negotiation  for  the  modification  of  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  in  such  manner  as  to  remove 
the  obstacles  which  it  may  present  to  the  construc 
tion  of  the  Central  American  canal  by  the  United 
States.  After  due  discussion  they  agree  upon  and 
sign  a  treaty.  That  agreement,  so  far  as  Great 
Britain  is  concerned,  requires  only  the  approval  of 
the  King  for  its  completion,  but  with  the  United 
States  the  case  is  very  different,  because  no  treaty 
can  be  ratified  by  the  President  of  the  United  States 
without  the  consent  of  the  Senate.  The  treaty,  so 
called,  is  therefore  still  inchoate,  a  mere  project  for 
a  treaty,  until  the  consent  of  the  Senate  has  been 
given  to  it.  That  all  treaties  must  be  submitted  to 
the  Senate,  and  obtain  the  Senate's  approval  before 
they  can  be  ratified  and  become  binding  upon  the 
United  States,  was,  we  may  assume,  well  known  to 
Lord  Lansdowne.  But  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
realized  that  the  Senate  could  properly  continue  the 
negotiation  begun  by  Mr.  Hay  and  Lord  Pauncefote 
by  offering  new  or  modified  propositions  to  His 
Majesty's  Government.  Of  this  he  was  clearly  not 
informed,  or  he  would  not  have  made  the  complaint 
about  being  confronted  with  new  propositions,  as  if 


224     TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

something  unusual  and  unfair  had  been  done.  No 
one  expects  the  "  man  in  the  street "  or  the  London 
editor  to  remember  that  so  long  ago  as  1795  the 
Senate  made  an  entirely  new  amendment  to  the  Jay 
treaty  and  that  England  accepted  it,  or  that  so 
recently  as  March,  1900,  the  Senate  made  amend 
ments  to  the  treaty  regulating  the  tenure  and  dis 
position  of  the  property  of  aliens  and  that  England 
accepted  them,  or  that  it  has  been  the  uniform 
practice  of  the  Senate  to  amend  treaties,  whenever 
it  seemed  their  duty  to  do  so.  But  a  British  secre 
tary  of  state  for  foreign  affairs  is,  of  course,  fa 
miliar  with  all  these  things  and  ought,  therefore, 
to  realize  that  the  Senate  can  only  present  its  views 
to  a  foreign  government  by  formulating  them  in 
the  shape  of  amendments,  which  the  foreign  gov 
ernment  may  reject,  or  accept,  or  meet  with  counter 
propositions,  but  of  which  it  has  no  more  right  to 
complain  than  it  has  to  complain  of  the  offer  of 
any  germane  proposition  at  any  other  stage  of  the 
negotiation. 

With  misapprehension  like  this  existing  not  only 
in  the  British  foreign  office  and  the  London  Press, 
but  also  in  the  minds  of  one  or  two  exceptionally 
"able"  editors  and  correspondents  in  this  coun 
try,  who  spoke  of  the  Senate's  action  in  amending 
the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  as  a  modern  usurpation, 
it  seems  not  amiss  to  explain  briefly  the  nature 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      225 

and  history  of  the  treaty-making  power  in  the 
United  States.  The  explanation  is  easy.  It  rests, 
indeed,  on  constitutional  provisions  so  simple  and  on 
precedents  so  notorious  that  one  feels  inclined  to 
begin  with  an  apology  for  stating  anything  at  once 
so  familiar  and  so  rudimentary.  Yet  it  would 
appear  that  the  circumstances  just  set  forth  fully 
justify  both  the  explanation  of  the  law  and  the 
statement  of  the  facts  of  history. 

The  power  to  make  treaties  is  at  once  a  badge 
and  an  inherent  right  of  every  sovereign  and  inde 
pendent  nation.  The  thirteen  American  colonies  of 
Great  Britain,  as  part  of  the  British  Empire  and 
as  dependencies  of  the  British  Crown,  were  not 
sovereign  nations  and  did  not  possess  the  treaty- 
making  power.  That  power  was  vested  in  the 
British  Crown,  and  when  exercised  the  colonies  were 
bound  by  the  action  and  agreements  of  the  British 
Government.  When  the  thirteen  colonies  jointly 
and  severally  threw  off  their  allegiance  to  the 
British  Crown  and  became  independent,  all  the 
usual  rights  of  sovereignty  which  they  had  not 
before  possessed  vested,  without  restriction,  in  each 
one  of  the  thirteen  States.  The  treaty-making 
power  was  exercised  accordingly  by  the  Continental 
Congress,  which  represented  all  the  States  and  where 
the  vote  was  taken,  by  States.  Under  the  subse 
quent  Articles  of  Confederation  the  treaty-making 

16 


226      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

power  could  not  be  exercised  by  any  State  alone 
or  by  two  or  more  States  without  the  consent  of 
the  United  States  in  Congress,  and  was  vested  in 
the  Congress  of  the  Confederation,  where,  as  in  the 
Continental  Congress,  each  State  had  one  vote,  and 
where  the  assent  of  nine  States  was  required  to 
ratify  a  treaty.  From  this  it  will  be  observed  that 
this  sovereign  right  which  had  vested  absolutely 
in  each  State,  although  it  was  confided  to  the  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States,  was  kept  wholly  within 
the  control  of  the  States  as  such,  and  was  never 
permitted  to  become  an  executive  function.  This 
was  the  practice  and  this  the  precedent  which  the 
Convention  found  before  them  when  they  met  in 
Philadelphia  in  1787  to  frame  a  new  constitution, 
and  they  showed  no  disposition  to  depart  from 
either.  The  States  were  very  jealous  of  their  sover 
eign  rights,  among  which  the  power  to  make  trea 
ties  was  one  of  the  most  important,  and  having 
so  recently  emerged  from  a  colonial  condition,  they 
were  also  very  suspicious  and  very  much  afraid 
of  dangerous  foreign  influences,  especially  in  the 
making  of  treaties.  At  the  outset,  therefore,  it 
seems  to  have  been  the  universal  opinion  that  the 
relations  of  the  United  States  with  other  nations 
should  be  exclusively  managed  and  controlled  by 
the  representatives  of  the  States,  as  such,  in  the 
Senate.  The  strength  and  prevalence  of  this  feeling 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      227 

are  best  shown  by  the  various  plans  for  a  consti 
tution  presented  to  the  Convention.  The  Virginian 
plan  so  called  was  embodied  in  resolutions  offered 
by  Mr.  Randolph,  which  proposed  to  enlarge  and 
amend  the  Articles  of  Confederation  and  passed 
over  without  mention  the  treaty-making  power, 
accepting  apparently  the  existing  system  which 
vested  it  in  the  States  voting  as  such  through 
their  representatives.  The  plan  offered  by  Mr. 
Pinckney  provided  that : 

"The  Senate  shall  have  the  sole  and  exclusive 
power  to  declare  war,  and  to  make  treaties,  and 
to  appoint  ambassadors  and  other  ministers  to 
foreign  nations,  and  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court." 

The  New  Jersey  plan  offered  by  Mr.  Patterson, 
which  aimed  only  at  a  mild  amendment  of  the 
Articles  of  Confederation,  left  the  treaty-making 
power,  as  under  the  Confederation,  wholly  within  the 
control  of  the  States  voting  as  such  in  Congress. 

Hamilton,  who  went  to  the  other  extreme  from 
the  New  Jersey  plan,  gave  the  treaty-making  power 
in  his  scheme  to  the  President  and  the  Senate,  but 
conferred  on  the  Senate  alone  the  power  to  declare 
war. 

All  these  plans,  as  well  as  the  general  resolutions 
agreed  upon  after  weeks  of  debate,  went  to  a  com 
mittee  of  detail,  which,  on  August  6,  reported,  through 
Mr.  Rutledge,  the  first  draft  of  the  Constitution. 


228      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

Section  1  of  Article  9  of  this  first  draft  provided 
that  "  The  Senate  of  the  United  States  shall  have 
power  to  make  treaties  and  to  appoint  ambassadors 
and  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court." 

The  manner  in  which  this  clause,  as  reported 
by  the  committee  of  detail,  was  modified  is  best 
described  by  Mr.  George  Ticknor  Curtis  in  his  "  Con 
stitutional  History  of  the  United  States":  l 

The  power  to  make  treaties,  which  had  been  given  to 
the  Senate  by  the  committee  of  detail,  and  which  was 
afterwards  transferred  to  the  President,  to  be  exercised 
with  the  advice  and  consent  of  two-thirds  of  the  Senators 
present,  was  thus  modified  on  account  of  the  changes 
which  the  plan  of  government  had  undergone,  and  which 
have  been  previously  explained.  The  power  to  declare 
war  having  been  vested  in  the  whole  legislature,  it  was 
necessary  to  provide  the  mode  in  which  a  war  was  to  be 
terminated.  As  the  President  was  to  be  the  organ  of 
communication  with  other  governments,  and  as  he  would 
be  the  general  guardian  of  the  national  interests,  the  nego 
tiation  of  a  treaty  of  peace,  and  of  all  other  treaties,  was 
necessarily  confided  to  him.  But  as  treaties  would  not 
only  involve  the  general  interests  of  the  nation,  but  might 
touch  the  particular  interests  of  individual  States,  and 
whatever  their  effect,  were  to  be  part  of  the  supreme  law 
of  the  land,  it  was  necessary  to  give  to  the  Senators, 
as  the  direct  representatives  of  States,  a  concurrent  au 
thority  with  the  President  over  the  relations  to  be  affected 
by  them.  The  rule  of  ratification  suggested  by  the  com 
mittee  to  whom  this  subject  was  last  confided  was  that 

1  Vol.  i.  pp.  579-581,  last  edition. 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      229 

a  treaty  might  be  sanctioned  by  two-thirds  of  the  Senators 
present,  but  not  by  a  smaller  number.  A  question  was 
made,  however,  and  much  considered,  whether  treaties  of 
peace  ought  not  to  be  subjected  to  a  different  rule.  One 
suggestion  was  that  the  Senate  ought  to  have  power  to 
make  treaties  of  peace  without  the  concurrence  of  the 
President  on  account  of  his  possible  interest  in  the  con 
tinuance  of  a  war  from  which  he  might  derive  power  and 
importance.  But  an  objection,  strenuously  urged,  was 
that  if  the  power  to  make  a  treaty  of  peace  were  confided 
to  the  Senate  alone,  and  a  majority  or  two-thirds  of  the 
whole  Senate  were  to  be  required  to  make  such  a  treaty, 
the  difficulty  of  obtaining  peace  would  be  so  great  that  the 
legislature  would  be  unwilling  to  make  war  on  account 
of  the  fisheries,  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  and  other 
important  objects  of  the  Union.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
was  said  that  a  majority  of  the  States  might  be  a  minority 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  representa 
tives  of  a  minority  of  the  nation  ought  not  to  have  power 
to  decide  the  conditions  of  peace. 

The  result  of  these  various  objections  was  a  determina 
tion  on  the  part  of  a  large  majority  of  the  States  not  to 
make  treaties  of  peace  an  exception  to  the  rule,  but  to 
provide  a  uniform  rule  for  the  ratification  of  all  treaties. 
The  rule  of  the  Confederation,  which  had  required  the 
assent  of  nine  States  in  Congress  to  every  treaty  or 
alliance,  had  been  found  to  work  great  inconvenience,  as 
any  rule  must  do  which  should  give  to  a  minority  of 
States  power  to  control  the  foreign  relations  of  the  coun 
try.  The  rule  established  by  the  Constitution,  while  it 
gives  to  every  State  an  opportunity  to  be  present  and  to 
vote,  requires  no  positive  quorum  of  the  Senate  for  the 
ratification  of  a  treaty ;  it  simply  demands  that  the  treaty 
shall  receive  the  assent  of  two-thirds  of  all  the  members 


230      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

who  may  be  present.  The  theory  of  the  Constitution 
undoubtedly  is  that  the  President  represents  the  people 
of  the  United  States  generally  and  the  Senators  represent 
their  respective  States,  so  that  by  the  concurrence  which 
the  rule  thus  requires  the  necessity  for  a  fixed  quorum 
of  the  States  is  avoided  and  the  operations  of  this  function 
of  the  Government  are  greatly  facilitated  and  simplified. 
The  adoption  also  of  that  part  of  the  rule  which  provides 
that  the  Senate  may  either  "  advise  or  consent,"  enables 
that  body  so  far  to  initiate  a  treaty  as  to  propose  one  for 
the  consideration  of  the  President  —  although  such  is  not 
the  general  practice. 

The  obvious  fact  that  the  President  must  be  the 
representative  of  the  country  in  all  dealings  with 
foreign  nations,  and  that  the  Senate  in  its  very 
nature  could  not,  like  the  Chief  Executive,  initiate 
and  conduct  negotiations,  compelled  the  convention 
to  confer  upon  him  an  equal  share  in  the  power 
to  make  treaties.  This  was  an  immense  concession 
by  the  States,  and  they  had  no  idea  of  giving  up 
their  ultimate  control  to  a  president  elected  by  the 
people  generally.  Here,  therefore,  is  the  reason  for 
the  provision  of  the  Constitution  which  makes  the 
consent  of  the  Senate  by  a  two-thirds  majority 
necessary  to  the  ratification  of  any  treaty  projected 
or  prepared  by  the  President.  The  required  assent 
of  the  Senate  is  the  reservation  to  the  States  of 
an  equal  share  in  the  sovereign  power  of  making 
treaties  which  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      231 

tion  was  theirs  without  limit  or  restriction.  The 
treaty  clause,  as  finally  agreed  to  by  the  conven 
tion  and  ratified  by  the  States,  is  as  follows :  "  He 
[the  President]  shall  have  power,  by  and  with  the 
advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate,  to  make  treaties, 
provided  two-thirds  of  the  Senators  present  concur, 
and  he  shall  nominate  and  by  and  with  the  advice 
and  consent  of  the  Senate  shall  appoint  ambassa 
dors,"  etc. 

I  have  quoted  the  provision  in  regard  to  appoint 
ments  in  order  to  define  more  fully  the  previous  one 
relating  to  treaties.  The  use  of  the  words  "advice 
and  consent"  in  both  provisions  has  given  rise  to 
misapprehensions  in  some  minds,  and  even  in  one 
instance  at  least  to  the  astounding  proposition  that 
because  the  Senate  cannot  amend  a  nomination 
by  striking  out  the  name  sent  in  by  the  President 
and  inserting  another,  it  therefore,  by  analogy,  can 
not  amend  a  treaty.  It  is  for  this  reason  well 
to  note  that  the  carefully  phrased  section  gives  the 
President  absolute  and  unrestricted  right  to  nomi 
nate,  and  the  Senate  can  only  advise  and  consent 
to  the  appointment  of,  a  given  person.  All  right  to 
interfere  in  the  remotest  degree  with  the  power  of 
nomination  and  the  consequent  power  of  selection 
is  wholly  taken  from  the  Senate.  Very  different 
is  the  wording  in  the  treaty  clause.  There  the 
words  "by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of" 


232      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

come  in  after  the  words  "  shall  have  power "  and 
before  the  power  referred  to  is  defined.  The  "  advice 
and  consent  of  the  Senate >?  are  therefore  coextensive 
with  the  "  power  "  conferred  on  the  President,  which 
is  "  to  make  treaties,"  and  apply  to  the  entire  proc 
ess  of  treaty  making.  The  States  in  the  convention 
of  1787  agreed  to  share  the  treaty  power  with  the 
President  created  by  the  Constitution,  but  they 
never  thought  of  resigning  it,  or  of  retaining  any 
thing  less  than  they  gave. 

The  Senate,  being  primarily  a  legislative  body, 
cannot  in  the  nature  of  things  initiate  a  negotia 
tion  with  another  nation,  for  they  have  no  authority 
to  appoint  or  to  receive  ambassadors  or  ministers. 
But  in  every  other  respect,  under  the  language  of 
the  Constitution  and  in  the  intent  of  the  framers, 
they  stand  on  a  perfect  equality  with  the  President 
in  the  making  of  treaties.  They  have  an  undoubted 
right  to  recommend  either  that  a  negotiation  be 
entered  upon  or  that  it  be  not  undertaken,  and 
I  shall  show  presently  that  this  right  has  been 
exercised  and  recognized  in  both  directions.  As  a 
matter  of  course,  the  President  would  not  be  bound 
by  a  resolution  declaring  against  opening  a  negotia 
tion,  but  such  a  resolution  passed  by  a  two-thirds 
vote  would  probably  be  effective  and  would  serve 
to  stop  any  proposed  negotiation,  as  we  shall  see 
was  the  case  under  President  Lincoln.  In  the  same 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      233 

way  the  Senate  has  the  right  to  advise  the  President 
to  enter  upon  a  negotiation,  and  has  exercised  this 
right  more  than  once.  Here,  again,  the  President 
is  not  bound  to  comply  with  the  resolution,  for 
his  power  is  equal  and  co-ordinate  with  that  of 
the  Senate,  but  such  action  on  the  part  of  the 
Senate,  no  doubt,  would  always  have  due  weight. 
That  this  right  to  advise  or  disapprove  the  opening 
of  negotiations  has  been  very  rarely  exercised  is 
unquestionably  true  in  practice,  and  the  practice 
is  both  sound  and  wise;  but  the  right  remains 
none  the  less,  just  as  the  Constitution  gave  it,  not 
impaired  in  any  way  by  the  fact  that  it  has  been 
but  little  used. 

The  right  of  the  Senate  to  share  in  treaty  making 
at  any  stage  has  always  been  fully  recognized,  both 
by  the  Senate  and  the  Executive,  not  only  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Government,  when  the  President 
and  many  Senators  were  drawn  from  among  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  and  were,  therefore, 
familiar  with  their  intentions,  but  at  all  periods 
since.  A  brief  review  of  some  of  the  messages 
of  the  Presidents  and  of  certain  resolutions  of  the 
Senate  will  show  better  than  any  description  the 
relations  between  the  two  branches  of  the  treaty- 
making  power  in  the  United  States,  the  uniform 
interpretation  of  the  Constitution  in  this  respect, 
and  the  precedents  which  have  been  established. 


234      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

On  August  21,  1789,  President  Washington  noti 
fied  the  Senate  that  he  would  meet  with  them  on 
the  following  day  to  advise  with  them  as  to  the 
terms  of  a  treaty  to  be  negotiated  with  the  Southern 
Indians.  On  August  22,  in  accordance  with  this 
notice,  the  President  came  into  the  Senate  Chamber, 
attended  by  General  Knox,  and  laid  before  the 
Senate  a  statement  of  facts,  together  with  certain 
questions,  in  regard  to  our  relations  to  the  Indians 
of  the  Southern  district,  upon  which  he  asked  the 
advice  of  the  Senate.  On  August  24,  1789,  he 
appeared  again  in  the  Senate  Chamber  with  General 
Knox,  and  the  discussion  of  our  relations  with  the 
Southern  Indians  was  resumed.  The  Senate  finally 
voted  on  the  questions  put  to  it  by  the  President, 
and  in  that  way  gave  him  their  advice.1 

1  During  the  first  years  of  its  existence  the  Senate  sat  with  closed 
doors,  and  there  is  no  record  of  any  of  its  debates.  The  only  official 
records  we  possess  are  the  dry  entries  of  the  Journal,  stating  the 
questions  put  and  the  votes.  For  the  first  two  years,  however,  we 
have  an  account  of  the  doings  of  the  Senate  in  the  diary  of  William 
Maclay,  a  Senator  from  Pennsylvania  during  the  period  from  1789  to 
1791.  In  that  diary  (pages  129  to  133)  there  is  a  full  description  of 
what  happened  upon  the  only  occasion  when  a  President  personally 
met  with  the  Senate  to  consider  a  treaty,  a  mode  of  consideration 
which  was  undoubtedly  contemplated  as  the  most  suitable  at  the 
time  of  the  framing  of  the  Constitution.  In  reading  Mr.  Maclay's 
narrative  it  is  well  to  remember  that  he  was  one  of  those  persons 
who  are  never  satisfied  in  regard  to  their  own  integrity  unless  they 
impugn  the  conduct  and  suspect  the  motives  of  every  one  else,  and 
especially  of  those  who  differ  with  them  in  opinion.  Mr.  Maclay  was 
exceedingly  hostile  to  Washington  and  could  not  appreciate  him. 
His  opinions  as  to  men  are  curious  and  untrustworthy,  but  his  state- 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      235 

On  August  11,  1790,  President  Washington,  in  a 
written  message,  asked  whether  it  was  the  judgment 
of  the  Senate  that  overtures  should  be  made  to  the 


ments  of  facts,  and  as  to  what  actually  occurred,  may  as  a  rule 
be  accepted,  and  are  of  peculiar  interest,  because  we  possess  no  other 
account  of  Senate  debates  at  that  period. 

In  the  same  connection  there  is  an  interesting  story  told  in  the 
diary  of  John  Quincy  Adams  which  is  worth  repeating,  and  which 
throws  an  interesting  light  upon  the  incident. 

**  Mr.  Crawford  told  twice  over  the  story  of  President  Washington's 
having  at  an  early  period  of  his  Administration  gone  to  the  Senate 
with  a  project  of  a  treaty  to  be  negotiated  and  been  present  at  their 
deliberations  upon  it.  They  debated  it  and  proposed  alterations, 
so  that  when  Washington  left  the  Senate  Chamber  he  said  he  would 
be  damned  if  he  ever  went  there  again.  And  ever  since  that  time 
treaties  have  been  negotiated  by  the  Executive  before  submitting 
them  to  the  consideration  of  the  Senate. 

"  The  President  said  he  had  come  into  the  Senate  about  eighteen 
months  after  the  first  organization  of  the  present  Government,  and 
then  heard  that  something  like  this  had  occurred. 

"  Crawford  then  repeated  the  story,  varying  the  words,  so  as  to 
say  that  Washington  swore  he  would  never  go  to  the  Senate  again." 
(Memoirs  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  vol.  vi.  p.  427.) 

Washington's  attempt  to  confer  with  the  Senate  in  this  direct  way 
was  so  obviously  inconvenient,  and  the  discussion  upon  the  propo 
sitions  was  so  annoying  to  the  President  on  the  one  side,  while  the 
restraint  of  the  President's  presence  was  so  much  felt  by  the  Senate 
on  the  other,  that  personal  deliberation  between  the  Chief  Executive 
and  his  constitutional  advisers  was  then  and  there  abandoned. 

But  although  given  up  in  practice,  the  original  theory  that  the  Presi 
dent  at  his  pleasure  was  to  consult  personally  with  the  Senate  upon 
executive  business  was  never  laid  aside.  In  the  first  set  of  rules 
adopted  by  the  Senate  in  1789  the  idea  was  so  much  a  matter  of 
course,  apparently,  that  no  provision  is  made  for  the  forms  to  be 
observed  when  the  President  meets  with  the  Senate  in  executive  session. 
In  the  revised  Rules  adopted  March  26,  1806,  rule  34  treating  of 
nominations  provides  that :  "  When  the  President  of  the  United  States 
shall  meet  the  Senate  in  the  Senate  chamber,  the  President  of  the  Sen 
ate  shall  have  a  chair  on  the  floor,  be  considered  as  the  head  of  the 


236      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

Cherokees  to  arrange  a  new  boundary ;  if  so,  what 
compensation  should  be  made,  and  whether  the 
United  States  should  stipulate  solemnly  to  guarantee 
the  new  boundary.  The  Senate  by  resolution  replied 
to  these  inquiries  in  the  affirmative. 

On  January  19,  1791,  President  Washington  laid 
before  the  Senate  the  representation  of  the  charge 
d'affaires  of  France  in  regard  to  certain  acts  of  Con 
gress  imposing  extra  tonnage  on  foreign  vessels,  and 
asked  the  advice  of  the  Senate  as  to  the  answer  he 
should  make.  On  February  26, 1791,  the  Senate,  by 
resolution,  replied  to  this  message,  stating  their 
opinion  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  fifth  article  of  the 

Senate,  and  his  chair  shall  be  assigned  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States." 

Rule  35  further  provides  that :  ' l  All  questions  shall  be  put  by  the 
President  of  the  Senate  either  in  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States." 

In  the  revision  of  the  rules  adopted  January  3,  1820,  the  provision 
of  Rule  35  in  the  revision  of  1806  was  dropped.  The  provision  of 
rule  34  of  1806  was  retained  and  remained  in  the  Senate  rules  until 
1877,  when  it  was  changed  to  read  as  follows  :  "  When  the  President 
of  the  United  States  shall  meet  the  Senate  in  the  Senate  chamber  for 
the  consideration  of  executive  business,  he  shall  have  a  seat  on  the 
right  of  the  chair."  The  provision  in  this  form  has  continued  to  the 
present  day  and  is  at  this  time  one  of  the  rules  of  the  Senate.  Thus 
it  will  be  seen  that  although  the  practice  has  been  given  up  the 
original  theory  of  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  has  never  been  aban 
doned.  The  rule  of  the  Senate,  now  nearly  a  century  old,  is  a  full 
and  significant  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  President  to  consult  in 
person  with  his  constitutional  advisers,  and  of  the  absolute  equality  of 
the  Senate  and  the  executive  in  all  matters  of  executive  business  in 
which  the  Senate  shares  under  the  Constitution. 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE     237 

treaty  in  relation  to  the  acts  of  Congress  which  had 
been  called  in  question,  and  advising  that  an  answer 
be  given  to  the  charge  d'affaires  of  France,  defending 
the  construction  put  upon  the  treaty  by  the  Senate. 

On  February  14,  1791,  a  message  was  sent  in 
which  illustrates  in  a  very  interesting  way  how  close 
the  relations  were  between  the  Senate  and  the  Presi 
dent  in  all  matters  relating  to  treaties,  and  how  com 
pletely  Washington  recognized  the  right  of  the 
Senate  to  advise  with  him  in  regard  to  every  matter 
connected  with  our  foreign  relations.  In  this  mes 
sage  he  explained  his  sending  Gouverneur  Morris  in 
an  unofficial  character  to  England  in  order  to  learn 
whether  it  were  possible  to  open  negotiations  for  a 
treaty,  and  with  the  message  he  sent  various  letters, 
so  that  the  Senate  might  be  fully  informed  as  to  all 
this  business,  which  was,  in  its  nature,  entirely  secret 
and  unofficial. 

On  November  10,  1791,  the  Senate  ratified  the 
treaty  made  by  Governor  Blount  with  the  Cherokee 
Indians,  and  the  report  of  the  committee  begins  in 
this  way :  "  That  they  have  examined  the  said 
treaty  and  find  it  strictly  conformable  to  the  instruc 
tions  given  by  the  President,  that  these  instructions 
were  founded  on  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Sen 
ate  on  the  llth  of  August,  1790,"  etc. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  multiply  instances  under 
our  first  President.  These  cases  which  have  been 


238      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

quoted  show  how  Washington  interpreted  the  Con 
stitution  which  he  had  so  largely  helped  to  frame. 
It  is  clear  that  in  his  opinion,  and  in  that  of  the 
Senate,  which  does  not  appear  to  have  been  contro 
verted  by  anybody,  the  powers  of  the  Senate  were 
exactly  equal  to  those  of  the  President  in  the  making 
of  treaties,  and  that  they  were  entitled  to  share  with 
him  at  all  stages  of  a  negotiation. 

April  16,  1794,  Washington  consulted  the  Senate 
upon  a  much  more  important  matter  than  any  of 
those  to  which  I  have  referred,  for  on  that  day  he 
sent  in  the  name  of  John  Jay  to  be  an  envoy  ex 
traordinary  to  England  in  addition  to  the  minister 
already  there.  He  gives  in  the  message  his  reasons 
for  doing  this,  and  in  that  way  caused  the  Senate  to 
pass  not  only  upon  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Jay 
but  also  upon  the  policy  which  that  appointment 
involved. 

May  31,  1797,  President  Adams,  in  nominating 
his  special  commission  to  France,  followed  the  exam 
ple  of  Washington  when  he  nominated  Jay,  and 
explained  his  reasons  for  the  appointment  of  this 
commission,  in  that  way  taking  the  advice  of  the 
Senate  as  to  opening  the  negotiations  at  all. 

December  6,  1797,  President  Adams,  in  submit 
ting  an  Indian  deed,  which  was  the  form  taken  by 
the  treaty,  suggested  that  it  be  conditionally  rati 
fied  ;  that  is,  that  the  Senate  should  provide  that  the 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      239 

treaty  should  not  become  binding  until  the  President 
was  satisfied  as  to  the  investment  of  the  money,  and 
the  resolution  was  put  in  that  form.  This  is  inter 
esting,  because  it  is  the  first  case  where  the  President 
himself  suggests  an  amendment  to  be  made  by  the 
Senate. 

March  6,  1798,  in  ratifying  the  treaty  with  Tunis, 
where  the  Senate  had  made  an  amendment,  they 
recommended  that  the  President  enter  into  friendly 
negotiations  with  the  Government  of  Tunis  in 
regard  to  the  disputed  article. 

February  6,  1797,  President  Adams  nominated 
Rufus  King  minister  to  Russia,  and  stated  that  it 
was  done  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  treaty  of 
amity  and  commerce  with  that  country. 

When  President  Adams  re-opened  negotiations 
with  France,  an  action  which  signalized  the  fatal 
breach  in  the  Federalist  party,  he  sent  in  the  name 
of  William  Vans  Murray  to  be  minister  to  France, 
explained  that  it  was  to  renew  the  negotiation,  and 
stated  further  what  instructions  he  should  give  if 
Murray  was  confirmed  by  the  Senate.  So  much 
opposition  was  aroused  by  this  step  that  in  order  to 
secure  the  assent  of  the  Senate  to  his  policy  Mr. 
Adams  sent  in  the  names  of  Chief  Justice  Ellsworth 
and  Patrick  Henry  to  be  joined  with  Murray  in  the 
commission,  and  stated  more  explicitly  the  conditions 
on  which  alone  he  would  allow  them  to  embark. 


240      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

President  Jefferson,  on  January  11,  1803,  sent  in 
a  message  nominating  Livingston  and  Monroe  to  nego 
tiate  with  France,  and  Charles  Pinckney  and  Monroe 
to  negotiate  with  Spain,  in  regard  to  Louisiana,  setting 
forth  fully  his  reasons  for  opening  negotiations  on 
this  subject,  so  that  the  Senate  in  advising  and  con 
senting  to  the  appointments  assented  also  to  the 
policy  which  they  involved. 

President  Madison,  on  May  29,  1813,  sent  in  a 
nomination  for  a  minister  to  Sweden,  to  open  diplo 
matic  relations  with  that  country.  The  Senate,  on 
June  14,  appointed  a  committee  to  confer  with  the 
President  upon  the  subject.  Madison  declined  the 
conference  on  the  ground  that  a  committee  could  not 
confer  directly  with  the  Executive,  but  only  through 
a  Department.  His  statement  of  the  relations  of  the 
President  and  Senate  in  his  message  of  July  6, 1813, 
is  interesting  as  showing  how  he,  one  of  the  principal 
framers  of  the  Constitution,  construed  it  in  this 
respect : 

Without  entering  into  a  general  review  of  the  relations 
in  which  the  Constitution  has  placed  the  several  depart 
ments  of  the  Government  to  each  other,  it  will  suffice  to 
remark  that  the  Executive  and  Senate,  in  the  cases  of 
appointments  to  office  and  of  treaties,  are  to  be  considered 
as  independent  of  and  co-ordinate  with  each  other.  If  they 
agree,  the  appointments  or  treaties  are  made ;  if  the  Senate 
disagree,  they  fail.  If  the  Senate  wish  information  pre 
vious  to  their  final  decision,  the  practice,  keeping  in  view 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      241 

the  constitutional  relations  of  the  Senate  and  the  Execu 
tive,  has  been  either  to  request  the  Executive  to  furnish  it 
or  to  refer  the  subject  to  a  committee  of  their  body  to  com 
municate,  either  formally  or  informally,  with  the  head  of 
the  proper  Department.  The  appointment  of  a  committee 
of  the  Senate  to  confer  immediately  with  the  Executive 
himself  appears  to  lose  sight  of  the  co-ordinate  relation  be 
tween  the  Executive  and  the  Senate  which  the  Constitution 
has  established,  and  which  ought  therefore  to  be  maintained. 

April  6,  1818,  President  Monroe  laid  before  the 
Senate  correspondence  with  Great  Britain  making  an 
arrangement  as  to  naval  armaments  on  the  Great 
Lakes.  He  asked  the  Senate  to  decide  whether  this 
was  a  matter  which  the  Executive  was  competent  to 
settle  alone,  and  if  they  thought  not,  then  he  asked 
for  their  advice  and  consent  to  making  the  agreement. 

President  Jackson,  on  March  6,  1829,  asked  the 
consent  of  the  Senate  to  make  with  the  charge 
d'affaires  of  Prussia  an  exchange  of  ratifications  of 
the  treaty  with  that  country,  the  time  for  the  ex 
change  having  passed  before  the  Prussian  ratification 
was  received.  The  request  was  repeated  on  January 
26,  1831,  under  similar  circumstances,  in  regard  to 
the  Austrian  treaty.1 

May  6,  1830,  President  Jackson,  in  a  message 
relating  to  a  treaty  proposed  by  the  Choctaw  Indians, 

1  This  became  the  universal  practice  in  cases  where  the  time  for 
exchanging  ratifications  had  expired  by  accident,  or  otherwise,  before 
the  exchange  had  been  effected.  It  is  not  necessary  to  cite  other 

instances. 

16 


242      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

asked  the  Senate  to  share  in  the  negotiations  in  the 
following  words  :  "  Will  the  Senate  advise  the  con 
clusion  of  a  treaty  with  the  Choctaw  Nation  accord 
ing  to  the  terms  which  they  propose  ?  Or  will  the 
Senate  advise  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  with  that 
tribe  as  modified  by  the  alterations  suggested  by  me  ? 
If  not,  what  further  alteration  or  modification  will 
the  Senate  propose  ?  "  President  Jackson  then  goes 
on  to  give  his  reasons  for  thus  consulting  the  Sen 
ate.  The  passage  is  of  great  interest  because  it  not 
only  states  the  change  of  practice  which  had  taken 
place  since  Washington's  time  in  regard  to  consult 
ing  the  Senate  before  or  during  a  negotiation,  but 
recognizes  fully  that  although  reasons  of  convenience 
and  expediency  had  led  to  the  abandonment  of  con 
sultation  with  the  Senate  as  a  body  prior  to  a  nego 
tiation,  yet  it  was  an  undoubted  constitutional  right 
of  the  President  to  so  consult  the  Senate,  and  of  the 
Senate  to  take  part,  if  it  saw  fit,  at  any  stage  of  a 
negotiation.  President  Jackson  says  : 

I  am  fully  aware  that  in  thus  resorting  to  the  early  practice 
of  the  Government,  by  asking  the  previous  advice  of  the 
Senate  in  the  discharge  of  this  portion  of  my  duties,  I  am 
departing  from  a  long  and  for  many  years  unbroken  usage 
in  similar  cases.  But  being  satisfied  that  this  resort  is  con 
sistent  with  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  that  it  is 
strongly  recommended  in  this  instance  by  considerations  of 
expediency,  and  that  the  reasons  which  have  led  to  the 
observance  of  a  different  practice,  though  very  cogent  in 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      243 

negotiation  with  foreign  nations,  do  not  apply  with  equal 
force  to  those  made  with  Indian  tribes,  I  flatter  myself  that 
it  will  not  meet  the  disapprobation  of  the  Senate. 

Under  President  John  Quincy  Adams  a  convention 
had  been  made  with  Great  Britain,  referring  to  the 
decision  of  the  King  of  the  Netherlands  the  points  of 
difference  between  the  two  nations  as  to  our  north 
eastern  boundary  line.  On  January  10,  1831,  the 
King  of  the  Netherlands  rendered  his  decision, 
against  which  our  minister  at  The  Hague  protested. 
On  December  7,  1831,  President  Jackson  submitted 
the  decision  and  protest  to  the  Senate,  asking 
whether  they  would  advise  submission  to  the  opinion 
of  the  arbiter  and  consent  to  its  execution.  The 
President  took  occasion  to  say  in  this  connection :  "  I 
had  always  determined,  whatever  might  have  been 
the  result  of  the  examination  by  the  sovereign 
arbiter,  to  have  submitted  the  same  to  the  Senate  for 
their  advice  before  I  executed  or  rejected  it." 

On  March  3, 1835,  the  Senate  passed  the  following 
resolution : 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  United  States  be  re 
spectfully  requested  to  consider  the  expediency  of  opening 
negotiations  with  the  governments  of  other  nations,  and 
particularly  of  the  governments  of  Central  America  and 
New  Grenada,  for  the  purpose  of  effectually  protecting,  by 
suitable  treaty  stipulations  with  them,  such  individuals  or 
companies  as  may  undertake  to  open  a  communication  be- 


244     TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OP  THE  SENATE 

tween  the-  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans  by  the  construction 
of  a  ship  canal  across  the  isthmus  which  connects  North 
and  South  America,  and  of  securing  forever,  by  such  stipu 
lations,  the  free  and  equal  right  of  navigating  such  canal  to 
all  such  nations,  on  the  payment  of  such  reasonable  tolls  as 
may  be  established,  to  compensate  the  capitalists  who  may 
engage  in  such  undertaking  and  complete  the  work. 

January  9,  1837,  President  Jackson  replied  to 
this  resolution,  stating  that  in  accordance  with  its 
terms  an  agent  had  been  sent  to  Central  America, 
but  that  from  his  report  it  was  apparent  that  the 
conditions  were  not  such  as  to  warrant  entering 
upon  negotiations  for  treaties  relating  to  a  ship 
canal. 

President  Van  Buren,  on  June  7,  1838,  sent  in 
a  message  announcing  that  he  intended  to  authorize 
our  charge  d'affaires  to  Peru  to  go  to  Ecuador  and, 
as  agent  of  the  United  States,  negotiate  a  treaty  with 
that  Republic.  Before  doing  so,  however,  he  thought 
it  proper,  in  strict  observance  of  the  rights  of  the 
Senate,  to  ask  their  opinion  as  to  the  exercise  of 
such  a  power  by  the  Executive  in  opening  negotia 
tions  and  diplomatic  relations  with  a  foreign  state. 

President  Polk,  on  June  10,  1846,  sent  to  the 
Senate  a  proposal  in  the  form  of  a  convention  in 
regard  to  the  Oregon  boundary  submitted  by  the 
British  minister,  together  with  a  protocol  of  the  pro 
ceedings,  and  on  this  he  asked  the  advice  of  the 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      245 

Senate   as   to  what   action   should   be   taken.     The 
message  then  continues  as  follows : 

In  the  early  periods  of  the  Government  the  opinion  and 
advice  of  the  Senate  were  often  taken  in  advance  upon 
important  questions  of  our  foreign  policy.  General  Wash 
ington  repeatedly  consulted  the  Senate  and  asked  their 
previous  advice  upon  pending  negotiations  with  foreign 
powers,  and  the  Senate  in  every  instance  responded  to  his 
call  by  giving  their  advice,  to  which  he  always  conformed 
his  action.  This  practice,  though  rarely  resorted  to  in 
later  times,  was,  in  my  judgment,  eminently  wise,  and 
may,  on  occasions  of  great  importance,  be  properly  revived. 
The  Senate  are  a  branch  of  the  treaty-making  power,  and 
by  consulting  them  in  advance  of  his  own  action  upon 
important  measures  of  foreign  policy,  which  may  ultimately 
come  before  them  for  their  consideration,  the  President 
secures  harmony  of  action  between  that  body  and  himself. 
The  Senate  are,  moreover,  a  branch  of  the  war-making 
power,  and  it  may  be  eminently  proper  for  the  Executive 
to  take  the  opinion  and  advice  of  that  body  in  advance 
upon  any  great  question  which  may  involve  in  its  deci 
sion  the  issue  of  peace  or  war. 

August  4,  1846,  President  Polk,  by  message,  con 
sulted  the  Senate  as  to  entering  upon  peace  nego 
tiations  with  Mexico  and  advancing  to  that  country 
a  portion  of  the  money  to  be  paid  as  consideration 
for  the  cession  of  territory. 

July  28,  1848,  President  Polk  sent  to  the  Senate 
a  message  explaining  his  refusal  to  ratify  an  extra 
dition  treaty  with  Prussia,  to  which  the  Senate  had 


246      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE  . 

agreed.  When  the  treaty  was  sent  to  the  Senate, 
on  December  16,  1845,  the  President  stated  his  ob 
jections  to  the  third  article.  The  Senate  ratified  the 
treaty  with  the  third  article  unamended,  and  there 
upon,  and  because  the  Senate  had  not  amended  or 
stricken  out  the  third  article,  the  President  refused 
to  ratify  the  treaty  himself. 

April  22, 1850,  President  Taylor  invited  the  Senate 
to  amend  either  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  or  that 
with  Nicaragua,  so  that  they  might  conform  with 
each  other. 

February  13,  1852,  President  Fillmore  pointed  out 
certain  objectionable  clauses  in  the  Swiss  treaty  and 
asked  the  Senate  to  amend  them. 

June  26,  1852,  President  Fillmore  sent  in  a  letter 
from  Mr.  Webster,  calling  attention  to  the  non-action 
of  the  Senate  upon  an  extradition  treaty  with 
Mexico,  and  asked  that,  if  it  was  thought  objec 
tionable  in  any  particular,  amendments  might  be 
made  to  remove  the  objections,  such  amendments 
to  be  proposed  by  the  Executive  to  the  Mexican 
Government. 

February  10,  1854,  President  Pierce  sent  to  the 
Senate  the  Gadsden  treaty,  signed  by  the  pleni 
potentiaries  on  December  30,  1853,  and  with  it 
certain  amendments  which  he  recommended  to  the 
Senate  for  adoption  before  ratification.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  better  example  than  this,  not  merely 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      247 

of  the  right  of  the  Senate  to  amend,  but  of  the  fact 
that  Senate  amendments  are  simply  a  continuance  of 
the  negotiation  begun  by  the  President. 

President  Buchanan,  on  February  12,  1861,  asked 
the  advice  of  the  Senate  as  to  accepting  the  award 
made  by  commissioners  under  the  convention  with 
Paraguay,  following  therein  the  precedent  set  by 
President  Jackson. 

February  21,  1861,  President  Buchanan  asked  the 
advice  of  the  Senate  as  to  entering  into  a  negotia 
tion  with  Great  Britain  for  a  treaty  of  arbitration  in 
regard  to  a  controverted  point  in  the  Ashburton- 
Webster  treaty  of  1846.  His  own  words  are  :  "The 
precise  questions  I  submit  are  three :  Will  the  Senate 
approve  a  treaty,"  etc. 

March  16,  1861,  President  Lincoln,  in  his  first 
message  to  the  Senate,  repeated  the  questions  of 
his  predecessor  as  to  entering  upon  this  negotiation 
for  an  arbitration  with  Great  Britain,  and  said :  "  I 
find  no  reason  to  disapprove  the  course  of  my  prede 
cessor  on  this  important  matter,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
I  not  only  shall  receive  the  advice  of  the  Senate 
therein,  but  I  respectfully  ask  the  Senate  for  their 
advice  on  the  three  questions  before  recited." 

December  17,  1861,  President  Lincoln  sent  to  the 
Senate  a  draft  of  a  convention  proposed  by  the 
Mexican  Government,  and  asked,  not  for  ratifica 
tion,  but  merely  for  their  advice  upon  it. 


248      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

January  24,  1862,  lie  asked  again  for  advice  as 
to  entering  upon  the  treaty  for  a  loan  to  Mexico,  so 
that  he  might  instruct  Mr.  Corwin  in  accordance 
with  the  views  of  the  Senate. 

February  25,  1862,  the  Senate  passed  a  resolu 
tion  to  the  effect  "that  it  is  not  advisable  to  nego 
tiate  a  treaty  that  will  require  the  United  States 
to  assume  any  portion  of  the  principal  or  interest 
of  the  debt  of  Mexico,  or  that  will  require  the 
concurrence  of  European  powers."  Meantime  Mr. 
Corwin,  not  having  received  instructions,  had  made 
and  signed  two  treaties  for  the  loan,  and  President 
Lincoln,  on  sending  them  in  on  June  23,  1862,  said 
in  his  message  :  "  The  action  of  the  Senate  is,  of 
course,  conclusive  against  acceptance  of  the  treaties 
on  my  part,"  but  the  importance  of  the  subject 
was  such  that  he  asked  for  the  further  advice  of 
the  Senate  upon  it. 

March  5,  1862,  President  Lincoln  sent  a  message 
repeating  President  Buchanan's  request  for  the 
advice  of  the  Senate  as  to  accepting  the  Paraguayan 
award. 

February  5,  1863,  President  Lincoln  sent  in  for 
ratification  a  convention  with  Peru,  and  suggested 
an  amendment  which  he  wished  to  have  made  by 
the  Senate. 

January  15,  1869,  President  Johnson  sent  in  a 
protocol  agreed  upon  with  Great  Britain,  and  asked 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      249 

the  advice  of  the  Senate  as  to  entering  upon  a  nego 
tiation  for  a  convention  based  upon  the  protocol 
submitted. 

April  5,  1871,  President  Grant  transmitted  a  de 
spatch  from  our  minister  to  the  Hawaiian  Islands, 
and  asked  for  the  views  of  the  Senate  as  to  the 
policy  to  be  pursued. 

May  13, 1872,  President  Grant  sent  a  message  to  the 
Senate  relating  to  differences  which  had  arisen  under 
the  treaty  of  Washington,  and  said :  "  I  respectfully 
invite  the  attention  of  the  Senate  to  the  proposed 
article  submitted  by  the  British  Government  with 
the  object  of  removing  the  differences  which  seem 
to  threaten  the  prosecution  of  the  arbitration,  and 
request  an  expression  by  the  Senate  of  their  disposi 
tion  in  regard  to  advising  and  consenting  to  the 
formal  adoption  of  an  article  such  as  is  proposed 
by  the  British  Government. 

"  The  Senate  is  aware  that  the  consultation  with 
that  body  in  advance  of  entering  into  agreements 
with  foreign  states  has  many  precedents.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  Republic,  General  Washington 
repeatedly  asked  their  advice  upon  pending  ques 
tions  with  such  powers.  The  most  important  recent 
precedent  is  that  of  the  Oregon  boundary  treaty, 
in  1846. 

"  The  importance  of  the  results  hanging  upon  the 
present  state  of  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain  leads 


250      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

me  to  follow  these  former  precedents,  and  to  desire 
the  counsel  of  the  Senate  in  advance  of  agreeing 
to  the  proposal  of  Great  Britain." 

June  18,  1874,  President  Grant  sent  in  a  draft 
of  a  reciprocity  treaty  relating  to  Canada,  and  asked 
the  Senate  if  they  would  concur  in  such  a  treaty 
if  negotiated. 

President  Arthur,  on  June  9,  1884,  asked  the 
advice  of  the  Senate  as  to  directing  negotiations 
to  proceed  with  the  King  of  Hawaii  for  the  exten 
sion  of  the  existing  reciprocity  treaty  with  the 
Hawaiian  Islands. 

March  3,  1888,  the  Senate  passed  a  resolution  ask 
ing  President  Cleveland  to  open  negotiations  with 
China  for  the  regulation  of  immigration  with  that 
country.  President  Cleveland  replied  that  such 
negotiations  had  been  undertaken. 

From  these  various  examples  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  Senate  has  been  consulted  at  all  stages  of  nego 
tiations  by  Presidents  of  all  parties,  from  Washing 
ton  to  Arthur.  It  will  also  be  observed  that  the 
right  to  recommend  a  negotiation  by  resolution  was 
exercised  in  1835  and  again  in  1888,  and  was  un 
questioned  by  either  Jackson  or  Cleveland,  who 
were  probably  more  unfriendly  to  the  Senate  and 
more  unlikely  to  accede  to  any  extension  of  Senate 
prerogatives  than  any  Presidents  we  have  ever  had. 
It  will  be  further  noted  that  the  Senate  in  1862 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE     251 

advised  against  the  Mexican  negotiation,  and  that 
President  Lincoln  frankly  accepted  their  decision, 
and  did  not  even  ask  that  the  treaties  which  had 
been  actually  made  meantime  should  be  considered 
with  a  view  to  ratification. 

The  power  of  the  Senate  to  amend  or  to  ratify 
conditionally  is  of  course  included  in  the  larger 
powers  expressly  granted  by  the  Constitution  to 
reject  or  confirm.  It  would  have  never  occurred 
to  me  that  any  one  who  had  read  the  Constitution 
and  who  possessed  even  the  most  superficial  ac 
quaintance  with  the  history  of  the  United  States 
could  doubt  the  right  of  the  Senate  to  amend.  But 
within  the  last  year1  I  have  seen  this  question  raised, 
not  jocosely,  so  far  as  one  could  see,  but  quite  seri 
ously.  It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to  point  out  very 
briefly  the  law  and  the  facts  as  to  the  power  of 
the  Senate  to  amend  or  alter  treaties. 

In  1795  the  Senate  amended  the  Jay  treaty,  rati 
fying  it  on  condition  that  the  twelfth  article  should 
be  suspended.  Washington  accepted  their  action 
without  a  word  of  comment,  as  if  it  were  a  matter 
of  course,  and  John  Marshall,  in  his  Life  of  Wash 
ington,  has  treated  the  Senate's  action  on  that 
memorable  occasion  in  the  same  way.  From  that 
day  to  this,  from  the  Jay  treaty  in  1795  to  the  alien 
property  treaty  with  Great  Britain  in  1900,  the 

i  1900-1901. 


252      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

Senate  has  amended  treaties,  and  foreign  govern 
ments,  recognizing  our  system  and  the  propriety 
of  the  Senate's  action,  have  accepted  the  amend 
ments.  A  glance  at  the  passages  which  have  been 
cited  from  the  Messages  of  the  Presidents  is  enough 
to  disclose  the  fact  that  no  President  has  ever 
questioned  the  right  of  the  Senate  to  amend,  and 
that  several  Presidents  have  invited  the  Senate 
to  make  amendments  as  the  best  method  of  con 
tinuing  the  negotiations.  In  this  case,  however, 
we  are  not  left  to  deduce  the  obvious  right  of 
the  Senate  to  amend,  from  an  unbroken  line  of 
precedents  and  the  unquestioning  recognition  of  the 
right  by  the  Chief  Executive.  On  this  point  we 
have  a  direct  and  unanimous  declaration  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  In  Haver  v. 
Yaker,  Mr.  Justice  Davis,  delivering  the  opinion 
of  the  court,  said :  "  In  this  country  a  treaty  is 
something  more  than  a  contract,  for  the  Federal 
Constitution  declares  it  to  be  the  law  of  the  land. 
If  so,  before  it  can  become  a  law,  the  Senate,  in 
whom  rests  the  authority  to  ratify  it,  must  agree 
to  it.  But  the  Senate  are  not  required  to  adopt 
or  reject  it  as  a  whole,  but  may  modify  or  amend 
it,  as  was  done  with  the  treaty  under  considera 
tion/'1  This  decision  of  the  court  is  conclusive, 

1  Wallace,  pp.  34  and  35.     Mr.  Rawle,  in  his  «  View  of  the  Con 
stitution   of   the   United   States,"  p.   64,  says:    "The   Senate   may 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE      253 

if  any  doubt  had  ever  existed  as  to  the  amendment 
powers  of  the  Senate ;  but  the  following  list  of 
treaties,  amended  by  the  Senate  and  afterwards 
ratified  by  the  countries  with  which  they  were 
made,  exhibits  the  uniform  and  unquestioned  prac 
tice  which  has  prevailed  since  the  foundation  of  our 
Government : 

Algiers,  1795;  Argentine,  1885  (amity  and  commerce), 
1897  (extradition)  ;  Austria,  1856 ;  Baden,  1857 ;  Bavaria, 
1845, 1853;  Belgium,  1858, 1880  (consular);  Bolivia,  1859, 
1900  (extradition);  Brunswick  and  Luneburg,  1854; 
Chile,  1900  (extradition) ;  China,  1868,  1887  (exclusion) ; 
Colombia,  1857;  New  Granada,  1888  (extradition);  Congo, 
1891  (relations) ;  Costa  Rica,  1852,  1861 ;  France,  1778, 
1843,  1858,  1886  (claims),  1892  (extradition);  Great 
Britain,  1794,  1815, 1889  (extradition),  1891  (Bering  Sea), 
1896  (Bering  claims),  1899  (real  property)  ;  Guatemala, 
1870  (amity  and  commerce);  Hawaii,  1875  (reciprocity), 
1886  (reciprocity)  ;  Italy,  1868 ;  Japan,  1886  (extradition), 
1894  (extradition),  1894  (commerce  and  navigation) ; 
Mexico,  1843,  1848,  1853,  1861,  1868,  1883  (reciprocity), 
1885  (reciprocity),  1886  (boundary),  1888  (frontier),  1890 
(boundary) ;  Netherlands,  1887  (extradition)  ;  Nicaragua, 
1859,  1870  (amity  and  commerce)  ;  Orange  Free  State, 

wholly  reject  it,  or  they  may  ratify  it  in  part,  or  recommend  addi 
tional  or  explanatory  articles,  which,  if  the  President  approves  of 
them,  again  become  the  subject  of  negotiation  between  him  and  the 
foreign  power ;  and,  finally,  when  the  whole  receives  the  consent  of 
the  Senate,  and  the  ratifications  are  exchanged  between  the  respec 
tive  Governments,  the  treaty  becomes  obligatory  on  both  nations." 
Mr.  Rawley's  entire  chapter  on  the  treaty-making  power  merits  care 
ful  consideration  in  this  connection. 


254      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

1896  (extradition} ;  Peru,  1863,  1887  (commerce  and  navi 
gation),  1899  (extradition) ;  Russia,  1889  (extradition) ; 
Saxony,  1845;  Siam,  1856  ;  Sweden,  1816, 1869  (naturaliza 
tion)  ;  Switzerland,  1847,  1850, 1900  (extradition) ;  Tunis, 
1797,  Turkey,  1830,  1874  (extradition);  Two  Sicilies, 
1855;  Venezuela,  1886  (claims). 

From  this  list  it  appears  that  there  have  been  68 
treaties  amended  by  the  Senate  and  afterwards 
ratified. 

The  results  of  the  preceding  inquiry  can  be  easily 
summarized.  Practice  and  precedent,  the  action  of 
the  Senate  and  of  the  Presidents,  and  the  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court  show  that  the  power  of  the  Sen 
ate  in  making  treaties  has  always  been  held,  as 
the  Constitution  intended,  to  be  equal  to  and  co 
ordinate  with  that  of  the  President,  except  in  the 
initiation  of  a  negotiation,  which  can  of  necessity 
only  be  undertaken  by  the  President  alone.  The 
Senate  has  the  right  to  recommend  entering  upon  a 
negotiation,  or  the  reverse ;  but  this  right  it  has 
wisely  refrained  from  exercising,  except  upon  rare 
occasions.  The  Senate  has  the  right  to  amend,  and 
this  right  it  has  always  exercised  largely  and  freely. 
It  is  also  clear  that  any  action  taken  by  the  Senate 
is  a  part  of  the  negotiation,  just  as  much  so  as  the 
action  of  the  President  through  the  Secretary  of 
State.  In  other  words,  the  action  of  the  Senate 
upon  a  treaty  is  not  merely  to  give  sanction  to  the 


TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE     255 

treaty,  but  is  an  integral  part  of  the  treaty  making, 
and  may  be  taken  at  any  stage  of  a  negotiation. 

It  has  been  frequently  said  of  late  that  the  Senate 
in  the  matter  of  treaties  has  been  extending  its 
powers  and  usurping  rights  which  do  not  properly 
belong  to  it.  That  the  power  of  the  Senate  has 
grown  during  the  past  century  is  beyond  doubt,  but 
it  has  not  grown  at  all  in  the  matter  of  treaties.  On 
the  contrary,  the  Senate  now  habitually  leaves  in 
abeyance  rights  as  to  treaty-making  which  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Government  it  freely  exercised,  and 
it  has  shown  in  this  great  department  of  executive 
government  both  wisdom  and  moderation  in  the 
assertion  of  its  constitutional  powers. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  abstract  merits 
of  the  constitutional  provisions  as  to  the  making  of 
treaties.  Under  a  popular  government  like  ours  it 
would  be  neither  possible  nor  safe  to  leave  the  vast 
powers  of  treaty-making  exclusively  in  the  hands  of 
a  single  person.  Some  control  over  the  Executive  in 
this  regard  must  be  placed  in  the  Congress,  and  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  intrusted  it  to  the  repre 
sentatives  of  the  States.  That  they  acted  wisely 
cannot  be  questioned,  even  if  the  requirement  of  the 
two-thirds  vote  for  ratification  is  held  to  be  a  too 
narrow  restriction.  These,  however,  are  considera 
tions  of  no  practical  importance,  and  after  all  only 
concern  ourselves.  Our  system  of  treaty-making  is 


256      TREATY-MAKING  POWERS  OF  THE  SENATE 

established  by  the  Constitution  and  has  been  made 
clear  by  long  practice  and  uniform  precedents.  The 
American  people  understand  it,  and  those  who  con 
duct  the  government  of  other  countries  are  bound  to 
understand  it,  too,  when  they  enter  upon  negotia 
tions  with  us.  There  is  no  excuse  for  any  misappre 
hension.  It  is  well  also  that  the  representatives  of 
other  nations  should  remember,  whether  they  like 
our  system  or  not,  that  in  the  observance  of  treaties 
during  the  last  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years 
there  is  not  a  nation  in  Europe  which  has  been  so 
exact  as  the  United  States,  nor  one  which  has  a 
record  so  free  from  examples  of  the  abrogation  of 
treaties  at  the  pleasure  of  one  of  the  signers  alone. 


SOME  IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA 

SOMEWHAT  more  than  a  year  ago l  Eduard  Suess, 
the  distinguished  Austrian  geologist,  eminent  alike 
in  science  and  in  public  life,  celebrated  his  seventieth 
birthday.  To  a  gathering  of  his  friends  who  had 
waited  upon  him  to  present  their  congratulations,  he 
made  an  address  in  which  he  discussed  the  political 
and  economic  future  of  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
The  theme  was  very  appropriate  to  the  speaker,  for 
modern  history  in  these  latest  days  has  been  engaged 
in  demonstrating  more  and  more  surely  and  clearly 
that  the  discovery,  possession,  and  development  of 
mineral  deposits  have  played  always  a  leading  and 
often  a  controlling  part  in  the  rise  and  fall  of  states 
and  empires,  in  the  growth  and  decay  of  civilizations, 
and  in  the  movements  of  trade  and  the  accumulation 
of  wealth.  This  phase  of  history  was,  therefore,  the 
one  naturally  taken  by  Herr  Suess  for  his  text,  and 
in  the  course  of  his  discussion  he  is  reported  to  have 
said  that,  owing  to  their  mineral  resources,  the  future 
belonged  to  three  nations, — the  United  States,  Russia, 
and  China,  but  with  a  long  interval  between  the  first 
and  second  ;  and  that  the  supremacy  of  the  nations 

1  This  article  was  published  in  Scribner's  Magazine  for  April,  1902. 

17 


258  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

of  western  Europe  and  of  England  was  over,  because 
their  natural  resources,  heavily  drawn  upon  for  many 
centuries,  and  never  very  large,  were  rapidly  ap 
proaching  exhaustion.  To  the  geologist  a  thousand 
years  are,  indeed,  but  as  yesterday,  and  that  which 
he  speaks  of  as  immediate  frequently  seems  to  the 
average  man  extremely  remote.  Many  years,  no 
doubt,  must  elapse  before  the  mineral  resources  of 
England  and  western  Europe  actually  give  out  or 
become  unprofitable  from  difficulty  in  working.  Yet 
the  end  is  pressing  sufficiently  close  to  cause  Eng 
land  and  Europe  to  watch  the  progress  of  the  United 
States  with  an  interest  hitherto  unknown,  and  which, 
whether  it  finds  expression  in  serious  discussion,  in 
sneers,  or  in  denunciations,  is  none  the  less  real  and 
none  the  less  tremulous  with  apprehension  of  the 
rival  at  whom  they  have  been  wont  to  scoff.  We,  on 
the  other  hand,  do  not  fret  ourselves  overmuch  about 
the  nations  we  are  overtaking  and  passing  in  the 
race  for  trade,  commerce,  and  economic  supremacy. 
We  observe  all  they  do,  with  much  care,  but  without 
anxiety.  To  us  the  great  country  placed  next  behind 
us  by  the  geologist  is  a  subject  of  keener  interest, 
although  no  cause  for  present  fear.  It  is  true  that, 
owing  to  the  superior  energy  of  the  American  people, 
a  long  interval  still  separates  us  from  Russia,  in  the 
prediction  of  Herr  Suess.  But  none  the  less  Russia 
has  the  natural  resources,  —  she  has,  like  ourselves,  a 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  259 

large  future ;  her  natural  resources  are  still  unde 
veloped.  The  nations  which  have  hitherto  held  eco 
nomic  supremacy,  but  whose  natural  resources  have 
begun  to  contract  and  decline,  demand,  no  doubt, 
our  most  watchful  attention,  but  need  not  excite  un 
due  apprehension.  Ultimate  peril,  if  there  is  any, 
can  only  come  from  a  nation  of  the  future,  with  pos 
sibilities  as  yet  unmeasured  and  unknown. 

To  every  reflecting  American,  therefore,  Russia  is 
of  absorbing  interest,  not  only  on  account  of  the 
friendship  she  has  frequently  shown  us,  but  because 
she  is  potentially  an  economic  rival  more  formidable 
than  any  other  organized  nation.  We  know  that 
somewhere  in  that  vast  territory  which  extends  from 
the  Baltic  to  the  Pacific  and  from  the  Arctic  Ocean 
to  the  Black  Sea,  there  is  found  every  variety  of 
soil  and  climate  and  every  kind  of  mineral  wealth. 
The  coal,  the  iron,  the  gold,  and  the  copper  may  not 
be  so  compactly  or  so  conveniently  placed  as  in  the 
United  States,  but  they  are  all  there.  That  which  it 
concerns  us  to  know  is  how  far  this  great  country 
and  its  resources  are  now  developed,  whether  they 
can  be  fully  and  effectively  developed  by  the  Russian 
people,  and,  if  so,  how  soon  they  will  reach  the  point 
of  dangerous  and  destructive  rivalry.  These  were 
the  questions  to  which  I  sought  reply  when  I 
travelled  in  Russia  last  summer;1  and  on  the  prin- 

1  The  summer  of  1901. 


260  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

ciple  of  seeking  and  finding,  I  received  a  number  of 
very  vivid  impressions  which  seemed  to  furnish  in 
some  degree  answers  to  the  questions  I  had  in  mind. 
I  shall  try  here  to  set  down  certain  of  those  impres 
sions,  with  the  hope  that  they  may  help  us  to  under 
stand  the  present  and  gauge  the  future  conditions 
with  some  accuracy,  for  upon  our  knowledge  of  these 
conditions  our  success  in  the  great  economic  struggle, 
upon  which  we  have  entered  so  victoriously  and  so 
cheerfully,  largely  depends. 

We  came  into  Russia  from  Vienna  by  way  of 
Poland,  and  stopped  at  Warsaw.  Here  was  a  large 
city  full  of  business  activity,  curiously  devoid  of  any 
sign  of  age  more  remote  than  the  days  of  "  Augustus, 
the  Physically  Strong,"  and  with  new  quarters  which 
closely  resembled  Chicago.  Everywhere  there  was 
bustle,  life,  energy ;  very  clearly  an  economic  people 
with  abundant  capacity  for  the  competition  of  the 
present  time.  And  over  this  large,  thriving,  moving, 
rather  commonplace  community  lies  ever  the  shadow 
of  80,000  armed  men,  for  that  is  the  garrison  needed, 
apparently,  to  maintain  the  peace  for  which  Warsaw 
has  become  proverbial.  The  people  are  Polish  and 
Jewish,  the  soldiers  are  Russians.  In  other  words, 
the  economic  people  here  are  not  Russians,  and  their 
obvious  capacity  for  modern  business  throws  no  light 
upon  Russia  unless  by  way  of  contrast.  But  from 
another  point  of  view  the  relative  positions  of  the 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  261 

two  races  are  full  of  instruction,  and  embody  very 
strikingly  the  great  truth  that  economic  capacity  is 
futile  unless  it  is  sustained  by  the  nobler  abilities 
which  enable  a  people  to  rule  and  administer  and  to 
display  that  social  efficiency  in  war,  peace,  and  gov 
ernment  without  which  all  else  is  vain.  It  is  well 
worth  while  to  pause  a  moment  as  one  looks  at  War 
saw,  and  remember  how  great  a  part  the  Poles  have 
played  in  history.  They  were  the  barrier  of  Europe 
against  the  Turk.  Only  three  centuries  ago  they 
were  in  Moscow,  pulling  down  and  setting  up  Tsars. 
They  were,  and  are,  a  gallant  people,  brilliant  in 
war,  versatile,  clever,  interesting.  They  were,  and 
are,  far  cleverer,  far  more  attractive,  far  quicker  than 
the  Russians ;  but  they  were  unable  to  govern  them 
selves  or  others,  and  the  Russians  have  shown  them 
selves  able  to  do  both.  They  were  anarchic,  weakly 
unable  to  combine  and  to  make  sacrifices  for  a  com 
mon  end.  The  Russians  were  orderly,  organized,  con 
centrated.  One  is  irresistibly  reminded  by  Poland  of 
Bagehot's  famous  proposition  that  in  great  governing 
races  there  is  always  a  certain  amount  of  stupidity, 
and  that  "  while  the  Romans  were  praetors,  the 
Greeks  were  barbers,"  —  an  illustration  which  he 
might  have  supplemented  by  one  equally  apt,  drawn 
from  contemporary  Warsaw.  But  none  the  less, 
however  we  may  explain  it,  and  however  much  we 
may  dislike  the  political  system  and  methods  by 


262  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

which  Poland  is  controlled,  the  fact  remains  that  the 
Russians  govern  Poland,  which  could  not  govern 
itself,  as  well  as  much  other  vast  territory  and  many 
other  hostile  or  alien  peoples.  We  may  object  to 
their  way  of  doing  it,  but  we  must  concede  at  the 
outset  that  the  Russians  have  the  governing  capacity, 
without  which  no  race  and  no  nation  can  aspire  to 
political  power  or  hope  for  material  success.  The 
manner  may  be  harsh,  but  the  Russians  can  main 
tain  order,  with  which  failure  is  likely  enough,  but 
without  which  nothing  is  possible,  except  anarchy 
and  chaos,  hateful  above  all  things  to  gods  and  men 
and  Thomas  Carlyle. 

The  railroad  from  Warsaw  to  Moscow  follows 
almost  exactly  the  route  of  Napoleon  and  the  Grand 
Army.  The  country  is  still  the  same  as  in  his  day, 
except  for  the  railroad  itself ;  and  as  the  dreary 
plain,  broken  only  by  vast  stretches  of  monotonous 
birch  and  pine  forests,  slips  by,  hour  after  hour  and 
mile  after  mile,  the  greatness  of  the  man  who  crossed 
it  with  an  army  looms  ever  larger  on  the  imagination. 
The  military  genius  of  Napoleon  seems  more  marvel 
lous  than  ever  before,  while  the  lone  and  level  plain, 
the  marshes,  the  woods,  the  chill  and  sluggish  rivers, 
silent  witnesses  of  his  great  march,  stare  back  at  the 
gazer  as  the  train  runs  slowly  onward.  It  was  this 
same  country  that  destroyed  his  army  on  its  retreat 
after  the  ruinous  and  inexplicable  delay  at  Moscow 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  263 

which  insured  a  defeat  that  could  have  been  so 
easily  avoided.  The  victory  of  the  desolate  wind 
swept  plains  over  the  only  soldier  of  modern  times 
worthy  to  rank  with  Caesar,  Alexander,  and  Hanni 
bal  suggests  some  interesting  reflections.  The  Rus 
sians  have  expanded  their  borders  and  added  to  their 
possessions  more  than  any  people  in  modern  times, 
except  those  who  speak  English.  The  Tsar  holds 
sway  to-day  over  a  territory  as  compact  as  the  United 
States  and  more  than  twice  as  large.  Throwing  out 
the  Arctic  wastes  of  Canadian  North  America,  Russia 
in  Europe  and  Asia  has  nearly  as  large  an  area  as 
that  of  all  the  widely  scattered  British  possessions. 
Yet  it  was  not  until  late  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
less  than  four  hundred  years  ago,  that  Russia  finally 
shook  herself  free  from  Tartar  dominion.  Two  hun 
dred  more  years  elapsed  before  her  political  organiza 
tion  became  consolidated  and  coherent,  free  from  the 
intermeddling  of  Poles  and  Swedes.  Her  great  ex 
tension  of  territory  has  practically  taken  place  within 
two  hundred  years ;  that  is,  since  the  accession  of 
Peter  the  Great.  When  it  is  remembered  that  the 
world  movement  of  the  English-speaking  people  began 
nearly  a  hundred  years  earlier,  with  the  first  settle 
ment  of  America  and  the  opening  of  the  East  India 
trade,  the  length  and  rapidity  of  the  strides  Russia 
has  made  in  the  acquisition  of  territory  and  the 
spread  of  her  empire  can  be  quickly  appreciated. 


264  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

Yet  a  very  conspicuous  fact  about  Russian  history  is 
that  she  has  never  been  a  conquering  nation,  in  the 
usual  military  sense.  She  has  never  swept,  swift 
and  victorious,  over  vast  spaces  of  the  earth,  like 
the  Tartar  hordes  which  held  her  in  bondage  for 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  whose  scattered 
remnants  are  now  her  peaceful  subjects.  Her  best 
known  successes  in  war  have  been,  as  a  rule,  defen 
sive  victories,  where  country  and  climate  were  the 
allies  of  her  soldiers,  as  when  she  ruined  Charles,  of 
Sweden,  at  Pultava,  or  destroyed  the  Grand  Army 
of  Napoleon,  pursuing  his  retreating  columns  over 
snow  and  ice,  more  deadly  and  destructive  than  all 
her  soldiers  and  artillery.  She  has  steadily  pushed 
back  the  Turks  in  many  wars  of  varying  fortune,  but 
the  empire  has  not  been  made  by  military  conquerors 
of  the  type  of  Alexander  or  Csesar  or  Napoleon. 
Suvaroff,  alone,  had  large  success  in  the  offensive, 
outside  his  own  country,  and  after  his  recall  the  Rus 
sian  army  was  beaten  by  Massena  at  Zurich. 

The  Russians,  indeed,  have  not  been  over-success 
ful  in  war.  They  have  always  fought  with  dogged 
stubbornness,  but  military  genius  seems  to  have  been 
lacking.  It  is  true  that  they  have  slowly  driven 
back  the  Turks,  and  yet  in  their  very  last  war 
Turkey,  crippled  as  she  was,  inflicted  many  bloody 
repulses  upon  them  and  stayed  the  march  to  Con 
stantinople.  Nevertheless,  with  the  exception  of  the 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  265 

English-speaking  race,  no  people  have  acquired  terri 
tory  so  rapidly  and  steadily,  or  held  it  more  firmly. 
No  matter  what  checks  they  have  received,  the  Rus 
sian  movement  has  gone  persistently  forward.  They 
have  spread  to  the  Baltic  on  the  north  and  to  the 
Black  Sea  on  the  south.  They  have  crossed  the 
Urals  and  carried  their  empire  to  the  Pacific.  Even 
now  they  are  grasping  Manchuria  and  have  opened 
their  way  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  despite  the  fact  that 
England,  if  we  may  believe  Captain  Mahan,  has  been 
increasing  her  prestige  and  improving  her  military 
strength  in  South  Africa.  They  hold  Poland,  Fin 
land,  and  the  German  Baltic  provinces  in  an  unwill 
ing  but  complete  subjection.  They  have  brought 
the  Cossacks,  that  wild  blend  of  Tartar  and  Greek 
with  outlawed  Poles  and  Russians,  to  an  entire  and 
satisfactory  loyalty,  while  the  still  wilder  tribes  of 
Central  Asia  accept  their  dominion  quietly,  and  rest 
content  under  their  rule.  The  people  of  the  South 
and  East,  with  a  less  advanced  civilization,  welcome 
Russian  government,  while  those  of  the  western 
border,  more  civilized  and  more  intelligent  than  their 
masters,  detest  it,  but  both  alike  are  held  quiet  and 
submissive  in  an  iron  grip.  Here,  then,  is  a  nation 
which  has  shown  two  great  and  vital  qualities  of  an 
imperial  and  ruling  race,  —  the  ability  to  govern  and 
the  ability  to  expand  and  conquer,  as  well  as  to  con 
solidate  and  hold  its  conquests. 


266  SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA 

Twenty  years  ago  it  would  have  been  admitted 
unquestioningly  that  a  nation  with  such  attributes 
and  such  achievements  in  the  recent  past  must 
soon  become,  not  only  a  portentous  rival  to 
all  other  nations,  but  that,  except  for  some  very 
unforeseen  contingency,  it  was  certain  to  attain  to 
supremacy,  if  not  to  absolute  domination  in  the 
affairs  of  the  world.  Since  that  time,  however,  a 
new  school  of  historians  has  arisen,  of  which  Mr. 
Brooks  Adams,  in  his  "  Law  of  Civilization  and 
Decay,"  was  the  pioneer  and  first  exponent,  and 
which  has  set  forth  and  sustained  the  theory  that 
the  rise  and  fall  of  states  and  civilizations,  nations 
and  races,  are  governed  by  processes  of  evolution 
as  sure  as  those  applied  by  Darwin  to  the  world 
of  nature,  and  less  definite  only  because  our  knowl 
edge  of  the  highly  complicated  facts  is  inferior  and 
our  opportunities  of  observation  more  limited.  This 
new  school  further  holds  with  Karl  Marx  that  in 
these  processes  of  evolution  the  controlling  forces, 
in  ancient  and  modern  times  alike,  have  been  eco 
nomic.  This  doctrine,  if  carried  to  extremes,  may 
easily  become  as  misleading  as  any  other ;  for  the 
one  thing  absolutely  certain  about  human  history  is 
that,  in  the  infinite  complications  of  human  motives 
and  passions,  no  single  theory  and  no  one  simple 
truth  can  alone  explain  all  the  doings  of  mankind 
and  all  the  events  of  the  past.  The  economic  forces 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  267 

have  been  so  utterly  overlooked  hitherto,  and  have 
really  played  such  a  great  and,  at  times,  dominant 
part  in  the  history  of  mankind,  that  it  is  easy  in 
reaction  against  their  undeserved  neglect  to  go  too 
far  with  them.  Properly  understood,  they  give  light 
in  many  places  where  before  there  was  darkness ; 
they  often  show  continuity,  where  hitherto  blind 
chance  seemed  to  reign ;  they  demonstrate  the  proc 
esses  of  evolution  and  they  explain  much,  but  taken 
alone  they  do  not  explain  everything.  A  nation 
may  produce  great  economic  capacity,  and  yet  fail. 
Even  the  towering  genius  of  Hannibal  could  not 
save  the  Carthaginians,  a  race  of  high  economic 
ability,  from  defeat  by  a  people  at  that  time  of 
low  economic  capacity,  but  endowed  with  greater 
tenacity  of  purpose,  greater  ability  to  stand  punish 
ment,  and  superior  quality  in  war.  The  Huns  swept 
over  Europe  in  conquest  and  disappeared,  for  they 
had  neither  organizing,  administrative,  nor  economic 
capabilities.  The  nation  which  can  only  fight,  no 
matter  how  brilliantly,  will  not  endure.  Like  Hun 
and  Tartar,  it  will  go  down.  The  nation  which  is 
purely  economic,  no  matter  how  much  it  wins  in 
commerce  or  how  vast  the  wealth  it  piles  up,  cannot 
long  survive ;  for  some  fighting  people  whom  it 
has  beaten  in  trade  will  destroy  it  in  war.  Carthage 
fell  before  the  advance  of  Rome.  A  people  may 
combine  fighting  and  economic  qualities,  and  yet 


268  SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA 

break  down  because  they  cannot  organize  and  gov 
ern.  Poland  furnishes  a  sad  example  of  such  a 
case.  A  nation  may  be  able  to  fight,  trade,  and 
organize,  and  yet,  if  unable  to  expand  and  spread, 
will  not  endure.  Spain  rose  to  domination  under 
her  statesmen  and  soldiers,  and  was  brought  to  the 
ground  by  Holland,  grotesquely  unequal  as  an 
antagonist,  because  Holland  could  not  only  fight  des 
perately,  but  by  marvellous  economic  talents  turned 
the  tide  of  wealth  to  Amsterdam  and  ruined  her 
mighty  foe,  who  could  not  make,  but  could  only 
spend,  money.  The  Dutch  in  turn  failed  to  expand, 
and  after  a  period  of  great  power  dropped  out  of 
the  race  and  lost  their  place  among  the  leading 
nations. 

It  is  not  enough,  therefore,  that  a  nation  should 
have  shown,  as  Russia  has  shown,  the  power  to 
conquer  territory,  to  fight,  govern,  and  expand. 
She  must  also  prove  that  she  is  gifted  with  the 
economic  qualities,  never  so  essential  as  now  when 
the  economic  forces  are  more  relentless  and  controll 
ing  than  ever  before  in  history.  Does  she  possess 
these  qualities,  or  can  she  develop  them  ?  On  the 
answer  to  these  questions  her  future  depends.  To 
seek  to  make  this  momentous  answer  complete 
would  be  a  life-work  for  one  man;  and  when  the 
life  had  been  given,  the  task  would  probably  remain 
unfinished.  But  indications  of  the  right  reply, 


SOME  IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA  269 

foundations  for  just  conclusions,  contributions  to 
the  final  settlement  of  the  problem,  these  can  be 
gathered  everywhere,  in  the  history  of  the  past, 
in  the  facts  and  statistics  of  the  present ;  they  can 
even  be  discovered  in  the  first  vivid  impressions 
of  the  passing  traveller,  if  he  will  take  the  trouble 
to  look  at  the  scenes  and  people  before  him  with 
considerate  eyes,  and  formulate  what  he  perceives, 
so  that  it  shall  be  intelligible  to  others. 

To  a  native  of  western  Europe  or  of  the  United 
States,  the  first  feeling  which  masters  him  in  Russia 
is  that  he  has  come  among  a  people  whose  funda 
mental  ideas,  whose  theory  of  life,  and  whose  con 
trolling  motives  of  action  are  utterly  alien  to  his 
own.  There  is  no  common  ground,  no  common 
starting-place,  no  common  premise  of  thought  and 
action.  The  fact  that  the  Russians  on  the  surface 
and  in  external  things  are  like  us,  only  accentuates 
the  underlying  and  essential  differences.  In  all  the 
outward  forms  of  social  life,  in  the  higher  education, 
in  methods  of  intercourse  both  public  and  private, 
they  do  not  differ  from  us,  and  Peter's  imitative 
policy  has  in  all  these  things  been  carried  to  com 
pletion.  That  the  man  in  the  breech-clout,  that 
the  wearer  of  the  turban  or  the  pigtail,  should  be 
wholly  alien  to  us  is  so  obvious  that  we  are  not 
startled.  But  that  men  who  in  the  world  of  society 
and  in  the  cities  dress  like  us  and  have  our  manners 


270  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

should  be  at  bottom  so  utterly  different,  gives  a 
sharp  and  emphatic  jar  to  all  one's  preconceived 
ideas. 

It  is  always  difficult  to  state  in  few  words  the 
radical  differences  which  separate  one  people  from 
another  in  thought  and  habits,  in  the  conduct  and 
ideals  of  life.  But  here  the  past  helps  us  to  a 
definition  at  once  broad  and  suggestive.  We  are 
the  children  of  Rome,  and  the  Russians  are  the 
children  of  Byzantium.  Between  Rome,  republican 
or  imperial,  and  its  Greek  successor  at  Byzantium 
there  was  a  great  gulf  fixed.  One  was  Latin,  the 
other  was  the  Greek  of  decadence  and  subjection. 
One  was  Western,  the  other  was  Eastern.  Ideas 
inherited  from  Rome  permeated  western  Europe  and 
were  brought  thence  to  America.  From  Rome  comes 
our  conception  of  patriotism,  to  take  but  a  single 
example,  that  love  of  country  which  made  Rome 
what  she  was  in  her  great  days.  The  patriotism  of 
the  Russian  applies  only  to  the  Tsar.  In  Glinka's 
fine  and  most  characteristic  opera,  "  A  Life  for  the 
Tsar,"  the  old  peasant  who  saves  his  sovereign  has 
no  word  for  Russia,  but  only  for  the  Tsar.  Give 
your  life,  give  everything  for  the  Tsar !  is  his  cry  ; 
and  the  songs  which  move  the  audience  to  profound 
excitement  are  passionate  appeals  ending  in  prayer 
to  sacrifice  all  for  the  preservation  of  the  Tsar. 
That  which  stirs  an  American,  an  Englishman, 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA  271 

a  Frenchman,  or  a  German  to  heroic  deeds  is  devo 
tion  to  his  native   land,  to  his  fatherland,  to  that 
ideal  entity  which  is  known  as  "  country."     That 
which  moves  the  Russian  is  devotion  to  a  man  who, 
next    to    God,    commands   his   religious    faith   and 
stands  to  him  for  his  country.     The  first  conception 
is  Roman,  and  of  the  Western  World.     The  second 
is  Oriental,  and  pertains  to  the  subtle  Greek  intel 
lect  in  its  decadence.     Nor  is  this  feeling  the  per 
sonal  loyalty  of  the  Cavalier  and  the  Jacobite  to  the 
Stuarts,   or   of    the   French   noblesse   to   the   house 
of  Bourbon.     The  loyalty  of  the  Russian  is  not  to 
Alexander   or   to    Nicholas   or   to   the    Romanoffs, 
a  family  of   mixed  blood,  chiefly  German  and  less 
than  three  hundred  years  ago  of  the  rank  of  boyars. 
The  intense  Russian  loyalty  is  to  the  crowned  and 
consecrated   Tsar,    whoever   he    may   be,  the   head 
of   the  State  and  the  head  of  the  Church,  next  to 
God   in    their    prayers.      Superadded   to   the   deep 
religious  feeling  for   the   Tsar   is   that   due  to  the 
fact  that  when  Peter  came  to  the  throne  commerce 
and  industry  belonged  to  the  Tsar,  like  everything 
else,  and  in  the  words  of  Peter's  latest  biographer, 
Waliszewski,  "  The  Tsar  is  not  only  master,  he  is, 
in  the  most  absolute  sense  of  the  word,  proprietor  of 
his   country   and  his  people."      Whatever   changes 
or  modifications  came  from  the  "  great  reformer," 
or  have  come  since,  have  been  in  details.     The  great 


272  SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA 

central  idea  that  the  Tsar  not  only  represents  God 
on  earth,  but  that  he  owns  country  and  people, 
is  still  dominant  and  controlling.  In  other  words, 
the  State,  in  the  person  of  the  Tsar,  is  owner  and 
master,  and  the  result  is  a  military  and  religious  so 
cialism  which  is  economically  a  wasteful  and  clumsy 
system,  utterly  unable  to  compete  against  the  intense 
individualism  of  other  countries  working  through 
highly  perfected  and  economical  organizations. 

The  same  difference  of  feeling  as  to  the  rela 
tions  of  men  may  be  seen  in  everything.  The 
religious  obeisance  of  the  Russians,  for  example, 
with  its  crouching  attitude  and  the  head  touching 
the  pavement,  is  thoroughly  Oriental,  and  never 
was  known  in  any  Western  Church.  One  feels  at 
every  step  the  great  gulf  fixed  between  those  who 
inherit  the  ideas  of  Eoman  law,  liberty,  and 
patriotism,  and  those  who  still  hold  to  the  slavish 
doctrines  of  the  Greek  Empire  of  Byzantium. 

In  the  famous  opera  of  Glinka,  which  has  just 
been  mentioned,  one  catches,  indeed,  the  keynote  of 
the  Russian  system.  The  hero  is  not  a  prince  or  a 
boyar  or  a  victorious  general,  but  a  simple  moujik, 
and  the  other  great  figure  is  the  Tsar,  who  never 
appears  on  the  stage  at  all,  but  upon  whose  fate  the 
entire  play  turns.  The  moujik  is  Russia,  and  on  the 
moujik  rests  the  government  of  the  Tsar.  So  long  as 
the  moujik  remains  as  he  is,  the  Russian  autocracy 


SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA  273 

can  neither  be  touched  nor  shaken.  The  outbreaks 
of  Nihilists  and  students  are  mere  froth  upon  the 
surface  of  society.  While  the  moujik  nils  the  army 
and  believes  in  the  Tsar,  all  the  efforts  of  the  discon 
tented  and  the  agitators  are  as  vain  and  empty  as 
the  passing  wind.1 

But  as  the  moujik  is  Russia,  it  is  on  him  and  his 
qualities  that  not  only  the  government,  but  the  fu 
ture  of  the  country  depends.  Is  he  able  to  take  a 
successful  part  in  the  economic  competition  of  the 
time?  If  he  is,  Russia  will  succeed,  and  the  most 
prosperous  and  powerful  of  nations  may  dread 
the  rivalry.  If  he  is  not,  Russia  will  ultimately 
fail.  It  is  true  that  in  the  Finns  and  the  Poles, 
in  the  Germans  of  the  Baltic  Provinces  and  the 
Tartars  of  the  South  —  remnants  of  the  hordes 
which  once  held  the  country  to  tribute  —  we  have 
industrial  and  economic  people  capable  of  economic 
development,  and  even  now  largely  in  possession  of 
the  business  and  capital  of  the  empire.  But  these 
outlying  races  are  in  a  hopeless  minority,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Tartars,  they,  in  various 
degrees,  detest  their  masters ;  they  have  no  control, 
and  never  will  have :  in  a  word,  they  are  not  Rus- 

1  The  serious  indication  in  the  recent  disorders  in  Russia  is  that 
workingmen  and  peasants  have  been  involved,  and  that  in  certain 
cases  the  soldiers  have  shown  signs  of  revolt.  If  these  symptoms 
spread  and  become  general,  it  will  show  that  the  moujik  is  at  last 
affected,  and  then  and  not  till  then  great  changes  will  come. 

18 


274  SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA 

sian  and  the  spirit  and  soul  of  Russia  are  not  in 
them.  There  is  no  need  to  waste  time  over  them. 
If  we  would  try  to  read,  however  dimly,  the  future 
of  Russia,  we  must  look  to  the  Russian  alone,  and 
really  to  the  Russian  moujik ;  for  the  educated  upper 
class,  cultivated  into  an  external  imitation  of  west 
ern  Europe,  are  not  Russia,  and  have  power  and 
meaning  only  when  they  represent  and  are  in  close 
accord  with  the  vast  inert  mass  of  the  population 
beneath  them,  as  was  the  case  alike  with  the  Russian 
Peter  and  the  German  Catherine,  the  two  great 
rulers  and  builders  of  the  empire. 

What  does  the  moujik  reveal,  then,  to  the  eyes  of 
the  passing  traveller?  I  saw  him  and  his  country 
first,  as  we  slowly  crossed  the  vast  plain  which  lies 
between  Warsaw  and  Moscow.  In  that  long,  mo 
notonous  stretch  of  eight  hundred  miles,  one  notes 
that  there  are  only  three  cities  of  any  size,  —  Minsk, 
with  91,000  inhabitants  ;  Brest-Litovsk,  with  48,000  ; 
and  Smolensk,  with  46,000.  There  are  only  six 
towns,  including  these  three,  of  over  10,000  inhabi 
tants,  and  only  nine  with  more  than  5,000.  This  is 
an  old  part  of  the  empire,  some  of  the  cities  having 
been  important  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  there  has 
been  no  industrial  growth,  no  concentration  of  labor 
and  capital,  no  organization  like  that  of  the  West. 
Yet  the  country  is  all  occupied.  The  farming  vil 
lages  appear  at  intervals.  They  are  composed  of 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA  275 

log  houses  huddled  together,  tumble-down,  dirty,  the 
chinks  stuffed  with  clay.  They  closely  resemble  the 
worst  cabins  of  the  early  American  pioneers  which 
gave  place  to  the  clapboarded  or  brick  house  in  a 
generation,  so  quickly,  indeed,  that  except  in  the 
region  of  the  negro  and  in  remote  districts  they  have 
largely  disappeared  from  our  Southern  and  Western 
country  in  the  course  of  a  century's  advance.  But 
the  Russians  have  not  advanced  beyond  the  log-cabin 
stage  in  eight  hundred  years.  In  some  of  the  larger 
villages  one  sees  occasionally  two  or  three  houses 
sheathed  in  boards  and  looking  like  an  American 
frame  house,  but  these  are  the  exceptions.  It  is  true 
that  Russia  is  a  country  of  wood  and  without  build 
ing  stone,  but  they  could  build  frame  houses,  and 
they  have  abundance  of  brick-clay.  Yet  there  they  are 
in  the  rudest  pioneer  stage  in  this  long-settled  region 
(Moscow  was  nearly  all  wood  less  than  two  hundred 
years  ago),  and  there  they  have  remained  in  rural 
districts,  while  the  centuries  have  slipped  by  un 
heeded.  The  eager  desire  for  improvement  in  mate 
rial  condition,  so  characteristic  of  the  people  who 
settled  the  United  States,  seems  to  be  lacking  in  the 
Russian  peasant,  for  even  the  most  adverse  circum 
stances  could  not  account  for  such  widespread  absence 
of  progress.  Such  immobility  cannot  arise  from  out 
side  causes,  but  must  have  its  roots  deep  down  in  the 
nature  of  the  race. 


276  SOME  IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA 

Even  more  striking  than  the  primitive  character 
of  the  villages  is  the  absence  of  roads,  of  which, 
in  White  Russia,  at  least,  there  are  apparently  none 
better  than  casual  cart-tracks.  One  can  hardly 
believe,  as  the  watch  indicates  approach  to  the  jour 
ney's  end,  that  the  train  is  drawing  near  a  great 
capital  of  a  million  inhabitants  and  a  thousand  years 
old.  The  blank,  roadless  plain  goes  on  up  to  the 
edge  of  Moscow,  which  has  no  suburbs;  and  even 
when  one  drives  to  a  pleasure-resort  only  five  miles 
from  the  city,  that  which  passes  for  a  road  would  be 
thought  bad  in  the  most  remote  mountain  districts 
of  the  southern  Alleghanies.  One  is  also  struck  in 
this  part  of  Russia  by  the  absence  of  any  improved 
implements  of  agriculture.  A  horse-plough  is  the 
only  advance  made  over  hand  labor,  the  reaping, 
gleaning,  and  threshing  all  being  done  by  hand  and 
chiefly  by  women  and  girls,  the  men  being  largely 
away  in  the  army  or  earning  money  in  the  cities  as 
cabmen  or  laborers  or  in  small  and  simple  industries. 
In  southern  Russia  American  agricultural  machinery 
has  been  introduced  and  is  extensively  used  ;  but 
White  Russia,  lying  between  Warsaw  and  Moscow, 
is  apparently  destitute  of  such  improvements,  al 
though  its  inferiority  of  soil  and  vast  extent  of 
arable  land  render  improved  methods  of  cultivation 
peculiarly  necessary,  from  the  economic  point  of 
view. 


SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA  277 

Far  stronger,  however,  than  any  impression  re 
ceived  from  the  villages  or  farms  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  Russian  is  that  conveyed  by  his  religious  attitude. 
Watch  the  people  at  church  during  some  of  its  noble 
and  always  imposing  ceremonies,  at  the  shrines  of 
saints  or  in  the  holy  places  of  the  Kremlin  on  a  feast- 
day,  and  you  recognize  at  once  that  you  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  religious  faith  of  a  kind  unknown  to 
western  Europe  and  to  America,  whether  Roman 
Catholic  or  Protestant.  Here  one  feels  at  once  that 
he  is  in  contact  with  a  faith  very  touching  and  beau 
tiful  to  see,  which  never  reasons  and  has  never 
recognized  reason  or  sought  even  to  dispute  its  argu 
ments.  The  devotion  is  simple,  blind,  and  so  un 
questioning  that  the  onlooker  of  another  creed  finds 
no  intolerance  apparent  anywhere,  and  never  is  dis 
posed  to  think  that  the  forms  so  sedulously  observed 
are  in  the  least  perfunctory  or  mechanical  among  the 
mass  of  the  people.  It  is  the  extreme  faith  of  the 
Middle  Ages  in  full  life,  but  without  the  ferocity, 
the  blind  fears,  or  the  asceticism  which  disfigured 
that  period  in  western  Europe.  While  the  Russian 
people  hold  to  their  present  faith,  the  Tsar,  who  is 
part  of  their  worship  and  belief,  has  an  authority 
founded  on  a  rock  which  nothing  can  shake.  The 
hero  of  Glinka's  opera,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  wears  the  dress  of  the  First 
Crusade ;  and  however  glaring  the  anachronism  his- 


278  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

torically,  the  sentiment  is  true  of  Russia  to-day  and 
always,  for  the  faith  of  the  people  is  of  the  time  of 
the  crusaders,  and  could  be  stimulated  even  now  to 
similar  outbreaks. 

The  question  which  confronts  those  who  try  to 
read  the  future  is,  what  effect  will  religious  faith  of 
this  kind  have  ultimately  in  the  struggle  of  the  pres 
ent  day  ?  We  know  that  when  the  darkness  of  the 
Middle  Ages  broke,  when  our  ancestors  again  discov 
ered  themselves  and  the  world,  when  they  read  once 
more  in  the  story  of  ancient  times  what  civilization 
had  been,  the  dominion  of  fear  passed  away,  and  the 
economic  forces  rose  again  out  of  their  long  twilight, 
and  assumed  their  pristine  influence  in  states  and 
empires.  We  know  that  the  nations  which  most 
thoroughly  and  readily  adapted  themselves  to  the 
changed  conditions  climbed  most  quickly  to  wealth 
and  power,  and  those  who  failed  in  adaptation  went 
to  the  wall.  France,  Germany,  Holland,  and,  above 
all,  the  English-speaking  people  pushed  to  the  front 
and  strove  for  supremacy.  The  Spaniard,  nearest 
to-day  to  the  mediaeval  man  and  least  able  to  meet 
the  new  demands,  sank  steadily  until  he  lost  even 
his  great  qualities  of  war  and  statecraft  which  had 
made  the  vast  empire  of  Charles  V.,  and  so  went 
down  in  hopeless  wreck.  The  Spaniards  were  an  old 
people,  who  were  unable  to  survive  as  a  great  power 
in  new  conditions.  The  Russians  are  a  new  people 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  279 

so  far  as  Western  civilization  is  concerned,  but  the 
inexorable  economic  forces  are  upon  them  now,  and 
they  must  meet  them  or  fall  back.  It  may  be  asked 
what  practical  effect  the  religion  of  the  Russians  has, 
economically  speaking.  Two  examples  will  suffice. 
The  Russian  calendar  is  a  fortnight  behindhand,  and 
is  a  constant  annoyance,  disturbance,  and  hindrance 
to  the  conduct  of  commerce.  The  Government  is 
anxious  to  bring  Russian  dates  into  harmony  with 
facts  and  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  but  does  not 
dare  to  do  so  because  popular  feeling  would  be  out 
raged  by  dropping  a  fortnight,  which  would  efface  in 
one  year  some  saints'  days  and  feast-days  and  would 
disarrange  the  rest.  When  Peter  changed  the  Rus 
sian  date  from  the  year  7208,  dating  from  the  crea 
tion  of  the  world,  to  1700  A.D.,  bold  as  he  was  he  did 
not  dare  to  accept  the  Gregorian  Calendar,  and 
among  his  many  reforms  this  partial  one  required  as 
much  audacity  as  any.  The  same  feeling  which 
Peter  thus  outraged  exists  to-day  as  strongly  as  ever, 
and  the  Russian  will  not  sacrifice  to  business  con 
venience  a  sentiment  about  the  calendar  of  no  real 
moment  whatever  to  his  faith  or  his  religion. 

This  feeling  for  the  existing  calendar  grows  from 
the  profound  popular  reverence  and  affection  for  the 
saints'  days  and  holy-days,  and  here  the  effect  in 
practical  affairs  is  much  more  marked.  In  addition 
to  the  fifty-two  Sundays,  Russia  has  about  thirty- 


280  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

nine  holidays  or  feast-days  of  the  Church.  They 
are  kept  as  rigidly  almost  as  a  London  Sunday. 
Business  ceases,  except  in  nooks  and  corners,  while 
drunkenness,  the  bane  of  the  Russian,  cripples  work 
for  twenty-four  or  forty-eight  hours  after  each  feast. 
In  round  numbers,  there  are  thirty  days  on  which 
the  Western  World  works  while  the  Russian  stands 
idle.  Consider  the  enormous  production  of  thirty 
days  in  the  United  States  alone ;  look  at  the  statis 
tics,  and  you  realize  at  once  that  in  this  single 
point  Russia  labors  under  a  wellnigh  hopeless 
disadvantage. 

But  the  matter  of  holidays  is  but  a  single  concrete 
example  of  a  state  of  mind.  Far  more  serious  and 
deep-rooted  is  the  mental  attitude  of  the  men  who 
make  and  who  are  the  Russian  Empire,  who  sustain 
the  great  military  and  religious  socialism  which 
that  empire  really  is,  toward  the  principles  of  busi 
ness  which  are  not  merely  the  truisms,  but  the 
ordinary  instincts  of  the  Western  nations.  Two 
little  anecdotes  will  illustrate  my  meaning. 

A  secretary  of  embassy  took  a  house  one  summer 
outside  St.  Petersburg,  and,  driving  to  the  station 
the  first  day,  when  he  paid  the  driver  his  twenty- 
five  kopecks,  said :  "  I  shall  go  into  St.  Petersburg 
and  come  out  daily  now  for  a  month,  and  I  should 
like  to  make  an  arrangement  with  you  to  take 
me  back  and  forth  from  the  station  every  day." 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  281 

The  reply  was  prompt :  "  If  I  am  to  take  you  back 
and  forth  from  the  station  every  day  I  shall  have 
to  charge  you  more  than  twenty-five  kopecks,  which 
you  paid  me  for  a  single  trip  this  morning." 

Again,  a  foreign  minister  was  in  the  habit  of 
having  books  bound  two  or  three  at  a  time.  Just 
before  his  departure  he  wished  to  have  some  fifty 
books  bound  in  the  same  way ;  sent  for  the  binder 
and  asked  him  at  what  price  he  would  bind  fifty 
volumes.  The  reply  was :  "  If  you  are  going  to 
have  as  many  as  fifty  bound,  I  shall  have  to  charge 
you  more  per  volume  than  for  two  or  three." 

It  may  be  said  these  are  isolated  instances,  but 
they  are  none  the  less  typical  of  a  mental  attitude 
among  the  masses  of  the  people  upon  economic 
questions  which  is  suggestive  in  the  highest  degree. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
find  a  huckster  in  the  streets  of  London,  Paris,  or 
New  York  who  would  not  at  once,  and  instinctively, 
make  a  reduction  in  price  to  any  one  who  would  buy 
a  quantity  instead  of  a  single  one  of  his  petty 
wares.  The  same  ignorance  of  the  simplest  laws 
of  successful  business  runs  through  everything  in 
Russia,  from  the  use  of  beads  strung  on  wires  to 
count  with  in  the  shops  and  banks,  to  the  clumsy 
fee  system  for  the  payment  of  public  officials. 

When  one  passes  from  the  habits  and  customs 
which  can  be  easily  noted  by  the  observant  travel- 


282  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

ler,  to  the  broad  facts  open  to  all  who  will 
study  books,  statistics,  and  economic  development, 
the  indications  furnished  in  the  daily  life  of  the 
people  receive  a  profound  and  startling  confirma 
tion.  Take,  for  example,  the  railroad  system,  probably 
more  vital  to  national  success,  in  the  conditions  of 
the  present  day,  than  any  other  single  element. 
When  George  Stephenson  devised  the  locomotive 
and  railroads  began,  it  was  as  open  to  Russia  as  to 
any  other  country  to  develop  railways  in  the  empire, 
but  now,  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century  after 
Stephenson's  day,  Russia,  with  more  than  8,000,000 
square  miles  of  territory,  has  barely  35,000  miles 
of  railway,  while  the  United  States,  with  3,000,000 
square  miles  of  territory,  excluding  Alaska,  has 
200,000  miles.1  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a 
stronger  expression  of  the  comparative  economic 
energy  of  two  great  nations  than  is  conveyed  by 
this  single  and  striking  example.  One  sees  con 
stantly  in  the  magazines  articles,  especially  by 
English  writers,  expressing  the  most  profound  ad 
miration  at  the  completion  of  the  Siberian  Railway, 
and  yet  nothing  could  be  more  convincing  of  the 

1  The  Almanach  de  Gotha  for  1902  gives  the  railroad  mileage  of 
Russia  as  follows : 

Russia  in  Europe 28,042  miles 

Russia  in  Asia 4,710  miles 

Finland      ..,.',. -    .        1,757  miles 

The  "  United  States  Railway  Gazette  "  estimates  the  railway  mile 
age  of  the  United  States  at  the  present  time  as  199,378  miles. 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  283 

very  low  economic  force  of  Russia  than  that  same 
railroad.  That  it  is  an  important  work,  that  it 
will  help  Russia  in  the  East,  both  economically  and 
for  military  purposes,  cannot  be  questioned,  and  yet 
to  wonder  at  the  building  of  the  Trans-Siberian  Rail 
road  is  only  possible  if  we  fail  to  look  below  the 
surface. 

Russia  has  been  occupied  for  more  than  ten  years 
in  building  6,000  miles  of  railway  over  a  very  easy 
country  for  the  most  part,  and  that  railway  is  not 
yet  completed.  The  turn  around  Lake  Baikal,  which 
involves  serious  difficulties,  is  not  yet  made,  and  will 
not  be  for  some  years.  The  Manchurian  branch  is 
not  yet  complete.  But  assume  that  we  may  call  the 
railway  completed,  what  do  we  find  ?  It  has  taken 
Russia  ten  years  to  build  6,000  miles  of  railroad. 
The  annual  construction  of  railways  in  the  United 
States  has  twice  reached  6,000  miles.  The  Russian 
road  has  cost  in  the  easiest  part  $30,000  a  mile,  and 
in  Siberia  it  has  probably  cost,  with  the  equipment, 
$50,000  a  mile.  Yet,  despite  this  enormous  and 
wasteful  expenditure,  they  have  only  got  a  single 
track  laid  with  rails  so  light  that  they  must  relay  it 
from  one  end  to  the  other.  It  is  as  yet  a  complete 
failure  commercial^.  It  is  not  paying  its  expenses. 
If  it  was  a  private  corporation  it  would  have  gone 
into  bankruptcy.  It  has  been  paid  for  in  loans 
which  have  helped  to  sink  Russia  in  debt,  and  is 


284  SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

maintained  out  of  taxes  imposed  upon  the  people. 
In  one  year  the  people  of  the  United  States,  by 
private  enterprise,  without  any  aid  from  the  Govern 
ment  or  without  any  taxes  upon  the  people,  have 
built  as  much  as  Russia  has  built  in  ten  years, 
and  most  of  it  is  profitable  and  has  been  constructed 
at  a  cost  which  would  make  Russian  competition 
commercially  impossible.  The  Trans-Siberian  Rail 
road,  when  its  statistics  are  examined,  is  a  most 
startling  exhibition  of  economic  inefficiency. 

There  is  no  need  here  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
of  the  general  economic  condition  of  Russia.  The 
railroads  alone  tell  the  story.  They  are  totally 
inadequate  to  the  business  of  the  country.  Most 
of  them  have  been  laid  for  a  military  or  strategic 
purpose,  and  this  has  thrown  many  of  the  industrial 
towns  of  Russia  out  of  the  line  of  communication 
and  has  made  them  eccentric.  This  meagre  railway 
system  is  also  totally  inadequate  for  distribution  or 
transportation.  Famines  recur  yearly  in  different 
parts  of  Russia,  and  yet  the  total  wheat  crop  is 
more  than  enough  to  feed  her  whole  people,  but 
the  means  of  transportation  make  intercommunica 
tion  and  relief  impossible. 

The  truth  is  that  the  Russians  are  a  primitive 
people,  and  at  the  same  time  an  old  people ;  that 
is,  they  have  been  long  established  in  their  present 
territory.  It  is  important  to  remember  these  two 


SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA  285 

facts,  because  it  shows  that  they  have  not  been 
able  to  grow  out  of  their  primitive  ideas  during 
a  long  period  of  time,  which  indicates  that  they 
are,  as  a  people,  incapable  of  the  economic  advance 
ment  or  of  the  adaptation  to  modern  conditions 
by  which  alone  they  can  hope  to  survive  and  win 
ultimate  success  in  the  struggle.  A  primitive  people 
is  economically  wasteful,  and  the  Russian  system 
is  wasteful  and  inefficient  to  the  last  degree.  With 
a  vast  country  and  unlimited  resources,  the  problem 
before  Russia  is  that  of  development.  Can  they 
develop  the  enormous  property  which  is  theirs? 
Thus  far  they  have  failed  to  do  so,  except  in 
a  comparatively  slight  degree,  and  there  is  no 
present  indication  that  they  will  be  able  to  develop 
their  country  with  their  existing  methods.  It  would 
be  rash  to  say  of  any  people  that  they  cannot  be 
turned  into  an  economic  and  industrial  nation,  es 
pecially  when  they  are  as  patient,  docile,  stubborn 
of  courage,  and  tenacious  of  purpose  as  the  Russians ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  it  would  take  many  generations 
to  bring  this  about  with  the  Russians  under  the 
most  favorable  conditions,  and  it  certainly  will  never 
come  to  pass  until  individualism  of  effort  is  encouraged 
and  personal  energy  rewarded. 

It  is  also  true  that  if  the  Russian  people  should  be 
converted  into  an  industrial  and  economic  organi 
zation  it  would  be  necessary  to  gather  them  into 


286  SOME   IMPRESSIONS  OF  RUSSIA 

towns   and   cities,  to   concentrate   their   labor,  and 
to   educate  them.     Nor  more  than  three   per  cent 
of  the  moujiks,  it  is  said  —  and  correctly,  I  believe 
—  can  now  read  or  write.     There  are  newspapers 
printed   in  Moscow,   but  I  never  saw  one  sold  on 
the  streets,  nor  did  I  see  anybody  reading  one,  and 
the  signs  on  the  shops  which  appeal  for  the  trade 
of  the  masses  are  largely  pictorial.     To  make  such 
a  people  economic  and  industrial,  they  must  be  edu 
cated,   organized,   and    quickened.      When   that   is 
done,  the  docile  peasant,  with  his  depressed  look, 
his  quiet  ways,  and   his  simple  faith  in    God  and 
the   Tsar,  will   have   disappeared.     His   place   will 
be  taken  by  the  active  and  energetic  workingman, 
and  the  present  system  of   autocracy  will  come  to 
a  speedy  end.     Whether  this  change  can  be  wrought 
in  the   character   of   the   Russian    is   doubtful,  but 
if  it  can  be  effected  it  would  take  a  long  time,  and 
no   effort   is   now  being   made    to   bring   it   about. 
Perhaps  those  who  control  the  destinies   of   Russia 
perceive  that  securing   industrial  success  after  the 
Western  fashion  requires  a  change  in  the  character 
and   training   of   the   people  which  would   involve 
a   revolution    in    the   forms    of    government;    but 
whether  they  see  it  or   not,  they  are  making  no 
effort  to  advance  their   people  in  that  way.     The 
great  body  of  the  Russians,  consisting  of  the  peasant 
and  farmer  classes,  are  fettered   hand  and  foot  by 


SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA  287 

the  communal  land  tenure  and  by  the  burden  of 
payments,  which  they  are  forced  to  make  for  the 
lands  which  they  formerly  worked  as  serfs.  This 
constitutes  an  absolutely  insurmountable  barrier  at 
present  to  their  advancement.  They  have,  more 
over,  no  outlet  for  their  products,  because  there  is 
no  system  of  distribution  sufficient  to  their  needs, 
and  there  is  no  encouragement  whatever  to  indi 
vidual  progress  and  personal  effort. 

Russian  statesmen  are  not  blind  to  the  perils  of 
the  existing  situation ;  and  if  they  are  not  seeking  to 
give  opportunity  to  individualism,  they  are  at  least 
trying  to  secure,  in  their  own  socialistic  way,  indus 
trial  development  for  Russia.  This  is  the  controlling 
idea  of  M.  Witte,  the  Minister  of  Finance,  who  is 
to-day  the  strongest  man  and  the  dominating  force  in 
the  public  life  of  Russia.  He  sees  very  plainly  the 
vital  necessity  of  industrial  development,  and  he  is 
trying  to  secure  it  through  the  Government.  To 
Americans  the  effort,  powerful  and  well  directed  as  it 
is,  seems  painfully  hopeless.  The  Government  under 
takes  to  run  not  only  the  railroads  and  the  telegraphs, 
but  it  regulates  sugar  production  and  interferes 
directly  with  all  the  industrial  activities  of  the 
country.  The  banks  are  urged  to  lend  money  for  the 
assistance  of  industries.  The  industries  expand  be 
yond  their  strength  and  fail.  The  banks  are  threat 
ened  with  disaster,  and  fall  back  upon  the  Government. 


288  SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF   RUSSIA 

The  Government  sustains  the  banks  and  turns  to 
western  Europe  and  to  America  for  loans.  If  the 
loans  fail  —  and  sooner  or  later  borrowing  for  enter 
prises  which  do  not  pay  must  come  to  an  end  — 
the  machinery  of  business  will  stop.  Such  a  system, 
no  matter  how  energetically  it  is  pressed,  cannot  sus 
tain  itself  or  hope  to  compete  in  the  long  run  with 
the  highly  organized  a"nd  thoroughly  economical 
systems  of  other  countries  like  France  and  Germany, 
or  like  England  and  the  United  States. 

With  patience  and  tenacity  of  purpose,  with  courage 
and  much  governing  capacity,  Russia  has  gone  on  add 
ing  one  great  region  after  another  to  her  possessions. 
She  has  shown  two  leading  qualities  of  a  ruling  race 
in  her  ability  to  expand  and  govern ;  but  when  the 
territory  comes  into  her  possession,  no  matter  how 
rich  it  is,  she  either  cannot  develop  it  at  all  or  at  best 
only  partially  and  unprofitably.  Her  own  original 
territory  is  still  undeveloped  and  unorganized,  and 
what  is  true  of  European  Russia  is  true  also  of  her 
great  Eastern  possessions.  It  is  useless,  economically 
speaking,  to  acquire  territory  if  nothing  can  be  done 
to  improve  it ;  if  it  cannot  be  made  a  benefit  either  to 
its  own  inhabitants  or  to  the  country  which  has  taken 
possession  of  it.  Every  acre  of  land  that  Russia  now 
adds  is  a  weakness.  Her  undeveloped  territory  in 
volves  an  immense  burden  of  expense,  and  a  great 
deal  of  it  practically  yields  nothing.  The  point  has 


SOME   IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA  289 

been  reached  when  the  more  she  adds  to  her  domain 
the  essentially  weaker  she  grows.  There  is  but  one 
remedy,  and  that  is  to  develop  the  personal  energy 
and  industrial  force  of  the  people,  if  they  possess  these 
qualities.  It  will  certainly  be  a  slow  process,  but  it 
is  the  only  one  which  will  succeed.  Russia  cannot 
use  her  vast  resources ;  cannot  survive  under  modern 
conditions  in  the  long  run  by  any  of  the  devices  of  a 
military  socialism.  While  she  is  as  she  is,  the  better 
organized  nations  have  nothing  to  fear  from  her  trade 
competition.  She  can  bar  them  out  from  the  vast 
regions  under  her  sway,  but  she  can  win  no  share  of 
the  world's  trade,  and  she  cannot  apparently  build  up 
a  domestic  trade  and  industry  of  serious  importance. 
She  has  an  immense  domain,  she  is  potentially  a 
great  force  of  the  future,  but  all  this  force  will  rust 
unused  unless  it  can  be  grasped  by  the  masses  of  the 
people,  who  must  then  adapt  themselves  to  the 
modern  conditions,  under  which  survival  is  alone 
possible. 

The  work  of  diplomacy  and  the  ability  to  govern 
in  which  the  statesmen  of  Russia  have  shown  them 
selves  masters,  a  powerful  army,  judicious  alliances, 
and  a  patient,  obstinate  adhesion  to  well-matured 
plans  can  do  much,  can  make  Russia,  as  they  have 
made  her,  formidable  to  all  her  neighbors  and  a  great 
power  in  Europe  and  Asia.  But  farther  than  this 
she  cannot  go,  no  position  less  precarious  than  that 

19 


290  SOME  IMPRESSIONS   OF  RUSSIA 

of  to-day  can  she  occupy,  until  the  energies  of  her 
people  are  called  out  and  given  full  play.  If  these 
energies,  once  set  free  to  hope  and  strive,  prove  to  be 
capable  of  high  economic  development,  then  she  can 
look  forward  to  winning  a  position  as  a  world-power 
commensurate  with  her  vast  resources  and  perilous, 
indeed,  to  all  her  rivals.  Unless  all  the  teachings  of 
history  and  science  are  vain,  there  is  no  other  way. 


ROCHAMBEAU l 

STATECRAFT  has  a  cynical  maxim  that  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  gratitude  between  nations.  If  we  must 
accept  this  as  true  of  those  practical  dealings  where 
sentiment  comes  into  hopeless  collision  with  self-inter 
est,  we  may  at  least  say  that  no  nation  really  great  will 
ever  hesitate  to  make  public  acknowledgment  of  its 
obligations  to  others  in  the  past.  The  New  World  of 
North  America  has  had  a  long  and  close  connection 
with  the  people  of  France.  At  the  very  dawn  of  the 
sixteenth  century  Breton  fishermen  had  followed  in 
the  track  of  the  Cabots,  and  were  plying  their  danger 
ous  trade  off  the  coast  of  Newfoundland.  Thirty 
years  later  C artier  was  in  the  St.  Lawrence  laying 
the  foundation  of  New  France  by  the  mighty  river  of 
the  North.  When  the  century  had  just  passed  its 
meridian,  the  Huguenots  came  to  Florida,  and  the 
great  name  of  Coligny  links  itself  with  our  history  as 
the  inspirer  of  distant  expeditions  to  the  untrodden 
shores  of  America,  even  when  France  herself  was 
torn  with  the  wars  of  religion.  It  is  a  dark  and 

1  Address  delivered  at  the  Unveiling  of  the  Statue  of  the  Comte 
de  Rochambeau,  Washington,  May  24,  1902. 


292  ROCHAMBEAU 

splendid  story,  wellnigh  forgotten  now,  which  comes 
up  to  us  out  of  that  dim  past  touched  with  the  glory 
of  the  admiral  of  France.  There  in  the  old  books  we 
can  read  of  Bibault  and  Laudonniere  and  their  com 
rades,  of  their  daring  and  intelligence,  and  of  the 
settlements  they  founded.  Then  come  Menendez  and 
his  Spaniards,  the  surprise  and  slaughter  of  the 
French,  massacred  on  account  of  their  religion ;  and 
then,  a  few  years  later,  De  Gourgues  swoops  down 
upon  the  Spanish  forts,  and  the  Spaniards  in  turn 
drench  the  sands  with  their  blood  and  swing  on  gibbets 
to  remind  all  men  of  the  passing  of  the  avenger.  Thus 
driven  from  the  South,  the  French  still  held  their  grip 
on  the  heritage  of  Cartier.  Champlain  gave  his  name 
to  the  great  lake  of  New  England,  where  rival  nations 
were  one  day  to  fight  for  dominion.  French  mis 
sionaries  died  for  their  faith  among  the  red  men  of 
New  York.  Pere  Marqiiette  explored  the  West,  and 
the  gallant  La  Salle  bore  the  lilies  of  France  from 
the  source  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  The 
French  names  mark  the  passing  of  the  French  dis 
coverers  from  Montreal  to  St.  Louis  and  from  St. 
Louis  to  New  Orleans.  And  while  the  "  Roi  Soleil " 
was  raising  his  frowning  fortress  on  the  banks  of  the 
St.  Lawrence,  despatching  Auvergnats  and  Normans 
and  Bretons  to  settle  Canada  and  urging  his  explor 
ers  across  the  continent,  some  others  of  his  best  sub 
jects,  driven  forth  into  the  world  by  revoked  edicts 


ROCHAMBEAU  293 

and  certain  things  called  dragonnades,  were  bringing 
their  wit  and  quick  intelligence  to  strengthen  and 
upbuild  the  English  colonies,  which  were  growing  up 
not  at  all  in  the  orderly  way  dear  to  the  heart  of  a 
grand  monarch,  but  in  a  rude,  vigorous,  scrambling, 
independent  fashion,  after  the  manner  of  races  who 
found  nations  and  establish  states. 

Presently  it  appeared  that  there  was  not  room 
enough  even  in  the  vast  wildernesses  of  North 
America  for  the  rival  powers  of  France  and  England. 
A  few  shots  fired  by  sundry  Virginians  under  the 
command  of  George  Washington,  whose  name,  spring 
ing  forth  suddenly  from  the  backwoods,  was  then  first 
heard  in  two  continents,  began  a  stubborn  war,  which 
ended  only  with  the  fall  of  the  French  power  and 
the  triumph  of  England  and  the  English  colonies. 
Thus  was  a  new  situation  created  in  North  America. 
Instead  of  two  rival  powers  struggling  for  mastery, 
one  reigned  supreme  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Florida. 
The  danger  from  the  North,  dark  with  Indian  war 
fare,  which  had  so  long  threatened  the  Atlantic 
colonies,  had  passed  away.  The  need  of  the  strong 
support  of  the  mother  country  against  the  power  of 
France  had  gone,  and  the  position  of  the  colonies  in  their 
relations  with  England  was  enormously  strengthened. 
A  blundering  ministry,  a  few  meddlesome  and  oppres 
sive  acts  on  the  part  of  Parliament,  a  departure  from 
Walpole's  wise  maxim  about  America,  "  Quieta  non 


294  ROCHAMBEAU 

movere,"  and  mischief  would  be  afoot.  It  all  came 
sooner  than  any  one  dreamed.  The  rejoicings  at  the 
close  of  the  victorious  war  had  hardly  ended,  the 
congratulations  to  the  "Great  Commoner"  had 
hardly  ceased,  the  statue  of  George  III.  was  scarcely 
firm  on  its  pedestal,  when  the  Americans  rose  in 
wrath  against  the  Stamp  Act.  England  gave  way 
sufficiently  to  make  the  colonies  realize  their  power, 
and  yet  not  so  completely  as  to  extinguish  suspicion 
and  hostility.  There  was  a  lull,  a  period  of  smiling, 
deceptive  calm,  then  the  storm  broke  again,  and  this 
time  there  was  not  wisdom  enough  left  in  London  to 
allay  it.  The  little  minds  which  Burke  thought  so 
ill  suited  to  a  great  empire  were  in  full  control,  and 
the  empire  began  in  consequence  to  show  an  ominous 
and  ever-widening  rent. 

Again  France  appears  upon  the  continent  where  for 
so  many  years  she  had  played  such  a  great  part,  and 
had  fought  so  bravely  and  so  unavailingly  for  domin 
ion.  The  chance  had  come  to  wreak  an  ample  ven 
geance  upon  the  power  which  had  driven  her  from 
Canada.  France  would  have  been  more  or  less  than 
human  if  she  had  not  grasped  the  opportunity  at 
once  so  satisfying  to  wounded  pride  and  so  promising 
politically.  Covertly  at  first  she  aided  the  English 
colonies,  and  then  after  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne  at 
Saratoga,  the  treaty  of  alliance  was  signed,  and 
France  entered  into  the  war  with  Great  Britain. 


ROCHAMBEAU  295 

The  French  government  aided  us  with  money  and 
with  men,  by  land  and  by  sea,  but  the  decisive  force 
was  that  which  landed  at  Newport  in  the  long  July 
days  of  1780. 

To  that  brave,  well-officered,  highly  disciplined 
army  we  raise  a  monument  to-day,  by  placing  here 
in  the  nation's  capital  the  statue  of  its  commander. 
For  their  service  and  for  his  own  we  owe  him  a  debt 
of  gratitude,  for  which  we  would  here  make  lasting 
acknowledgment,  one  which  will  stand  unchanged 
beneath  the  sunshine  and  the  rain  long  after  the 
words  we  speak  shall  have  been  forgotten. 

This  statue  is  the  counterfeit  presentment  of  the 
gallant  figure  of  a  gallant  gentleman.  Born  in  1725, 
of  noble  family,  a  native  of  Vendome,  Jean  Baptiste 
Donation  de  Vimeur,  Comte  de  Rochambeau,  had 
just  passed  his  fifty-fifth  birthday  when  he  landed 
at  Newport.  His  career  had  been  long  and  dis 
tinguished.  His  honors  and  his  rank  in  the  army 
had  been  won  in  the  field,  not  in  the  antechambers 
of  Versailles.  In  an  age  when  the  greatest  noble 
men  of  France  thought  it  no  shame  to  seek  advance 
ment  from  royal  mistresses  by  whose  whims  ministers 
rose  and  fell  and  the  policies  of  state  were  decided, 
Rochambeau  in  time  of  peace  turned  from  the  court 
to  his  regiment  and  his  estates.  He  had  shared  in 
all  the  campaigns  of  France  from  the  time  when  his 
elder  brother's  death  had  taken  him  from  the  church, 


296  ROCHAMBEAU 

in  which  he  was  about  to  become  a  priest,  and  placed 
him  in  the  army.  At  the  siege  of  Namur  he  earned 
the  rank  of  colonel  by  the  surprise  of  an  outpost 
which  led  to  the  surrender  of  the  town.  He  was 
twice  wounded  at  the  head  of  his  regiment  at  the 
battle  of  Laufeld.  He  captured  the  enemy's  maga 
zines  at  the  siege  of  Maestricht,  and  won  the  Cross 
of  St.  Louis  leading  the  assault  upon  the  forts  of 
Minorca.  He  fought  the  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Bruns 
wick,  and  captured  the  fortress  of  Regenstein  in 
1757.  At  Crefeld  he  sustained  for  a  long  time  the 
attack  of  the  Prussian  army ;  he  took  a  leading  part 
in  the  battle  of  Minden,  and  was  again  wounded  at 
Kloster  camp.  After  the  peace  Rochambeau  was 
often  consulted  by  ministers,  but  never  would  take 
office.  At  last,  in  March,  1780,  he  was  made  lieu 
tenant-general  and  sent  with  the  French  army  to 
America. 

He  reached  the  United  States  at  a  dark  hour  for 
the  American  cause.  The  first  fervor  of  resistance 
had  cooled,  the  active  fighting  had  subsided  in  the 
North,  Congress  had  grown  feeble  and  inert,  govern 
ment  and  finance  both  dragged  heavily,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  the  Revolution,  so  successful  in  the 
field,  would  founder  upon  the  rocks  of  political  and 
executive  incapacity.  Washington  and  the  army, 
in  the  midst  of  almost  unparalleled  difficulties,  alone 
kept  the  cause  alive.  The  coming  of  Rochambeau 


ROCHAMBEAU  297 

and  his  men  was  a  great  good  fortune,  and  yet 
its  first  result  was  to  induce  further  relaxation  of 
effort  on  the  part  of  Congress.  Washington,  realiz 
ing  all  the  event  meant,  opened  correspondence  at 
once  with  Rochambeau,  but  it  was  not  until  Septem 
ber  that  he  was  able  to  seek  the  French  commander 
in  person  at  Hartford.  It  was  a  great  relief  to 
the  heavily  burdened  general  to  meet  such  a  man 
as  Rochambeau,  and  yet  even  then,  as  he  turned 
back  with  lightened  heart  and  lifted  hopes,  the  news, 
of  Arnold's  treason  smote  him  on  his  arrival  at 
West  Point. 

So  the  summer  had  gone  and  nothing  had  been 
done.  Then  Rochambeau  was  unwilling  to  move 
without  further  reinforcements,  and  Washington 
was  struggling  desperately  to  wring  from  a  hesitat 
ing  Congress  and  from  reluctant  States  the  men, 
money,  and  supplies  absolutely  essential  if  the  great 
opportunity  which  had  now  come  was  not  to  pass 
away  unused.  So  the  winter  wore  on  and  spring 
came,  and  in  May  Washington  and  Rochambeau 
were  again  in  consultation.  Washington  was  de 
termined  to  strike  a  fatal  blow  somewhere.  He 
considered  Florida  and  the  scheme  of  taking  the 
British  under  Rawdon  in  the  rear;  he  thought  of 
Virginia,  where  Cornwallis,  forced  northward  by 
Green's  stratagem,  was  established  with  his  army; 
long  and  earnestly  he  looked  at  New  York,  the  chief 


298  ROCHAMBEAU 

seat  of  British  power.  Rochambeau  showed  his  mili 
tary  intelligence  by  leaning  strongly  to  Virginia. 
But  the  one  vital  condition  was  still  lacking :  Wash 
ington  knew  that  he  must  command  the  sea,  if  only 
for  a  month,  at  the  point  where  he  was  to  deliver 
the  decisive  blow.  So  the  days  slipped  by,  the 
summer  waned,  and  then  of  a  sudden  the  great 
condition  sprang  into  life.  De  Grasse,  to  whom  we 
owe  a  debt  as  great  as  to  Rochambeau,  appeared 
in  the  Chesapeake  with  his  fleet.  No  longer  was 
there  room  for  doubt.  Cornwallis  in  Virginia  was 
clearly  now  the  quarry  for  the  allied  forces. 

Time  forbids  me  to  tell  the  brilliant  story  of  that 
campaign;  of  the  manner  in  which  De  Barras  was 
induced  to  bring  his  squadron  from  the  north;  of 
the  adroitness  with  which  Clinton  was  deceived  in 
New  York;  of  the  skill  and  rapidity  with  which 
the  French  and  American  armies  were  hurried  from 
New  York  to  the  Chesapeake,  and  thence  to  York- 
town.  The  great,  the  golden  moment  so  longed  for 
by  Washington,  when  he  could  unite  both  land  and 
sea  power,  had  at  last  arrived.  De  Grasse  was 
master  of  the  bay.  The  English  fleet  was  scattered 
and  divided.  Clinton  slumbered  in  New  York,  and 
Cornwallis,  with  some  9,000  men,  was  in  Yorktown, 
with  the  united  French  and  American  armies  drawn 
close  about  him.  Fast  followed  the  siege,  nearer 
came  the  enclosing  lines ;  Lauzun  dashed  back  Tarle- 


ROCHAMBEAU  299 

ton's  cavalry  at  the  very  beginning,  and  every  British 
sortie  from  that  moment  was  repulsed.  Day  by  day 
the  parallels  were  pushed  forward,  and  at  last  Wash 
ington  declared  the  advanced  British  redoubts  prac 
ticable  for  assault.  The  French,  under  Viomenil, 
the  Grenadiers  of  Gatinois,  the  regiments  of  Au- 
vergne  and  Deux-Ponts  stormed  one,  and  here  the 
most  famous  of  the  French  regiments  recovered  from 
their  king  the  proud  motto  of  "Auvergne  sans 
tache."  The  other  redoubt  was  assigned  to  the 
Americans  under  Lafayette,  led  by  Alexander  Hamil 
ton  and  John  Laurens.  Both  assaults,  brilliantly 
delivered,  were  successful,  and  the  American  lines 
included  the  ground  which  had  been  so  gallantly 
won.  A  desperate  sortie  under  Colonel  Graham  com 
pletely  repulsed,  a  vain  attempt  to  escape  by  water, 
and  then  all  was  over.  On  the  18th  of  October 
Cornwallis  surrendered,  and  on  the  following  day 
the  British  filed  out  and  laid  down  their  arms, 
passing  between  the  ordered  lines  of  the  French 
drawn  up  under  the  lilies  and  the  ranks  of  the 
Americans  standing  beneath  the  thirteen  stars  fixed 
on  that  day  in  the  firmanent  of  nations.  The 
American  Revolution  had  been  fought  out  and  the 
new  people  had  won. 

Through  all  these  events,  through  all  the  months 
of  weary  waiting,  through  the  weeks  of  rapid  march 
and  the  hurrying  days  of  siege  and  battle,  there  shine 


300  ROCHAMBEAU 

out  very  brightly  the  fine  qualities  of  the  French  gen 
eral.  Nothing  is  more  difficult  than  the  management 
in  war  of  allied  forces.  Here  there  was  never  a  jar. 
Rochambeau  was  large-minded  enough  to  understand 
the  greatness  of  Washington,  to  realize  the  height  of 
mind  and  the  power  of  character  which  invested  the 
American  leader  with  a  dignity  beyond  aught  that 
royal  birth  or  kingly  title  could  confer.  No  small 
jealousies  marred  their  intercourse.  They  wrought 
together  for  a  common  cause;  and  the  long  experi 
ence,  the  thorough  training,  the  keen  military  intelli 
gence,  the  wisdom  and  honest  purpose  of  Rochambeau 
were  all  freely  given  to  the  Americans  and  their  com 
mander.  Honor  and  gratitude,  then,  to  Rochambeau 
for  what  he  did  for  us,  and  gratitude  and  honor  like 
wise  to  De  Grasse  and  De  Barras  for  the  sea  power 
with  which  they  upheld  and  sustained  both  Washing 
ton  and  Rochambeau. 

But  there  is  something  more  in  the  story  than  this ; 
something  of  deeper  meaning  than  the  plans  of  states 
men  to  humble  a  successful  foe  and  take  a  tardy  re 
venge  for  past  defeats ;  something  more  profound 
than  the  grasping  of  a  young  people  at  a  friendly 
hand  to  draw  them  forth  from  the  stormy  waters  of  a 
desperate  war  for  liberty.  Look  again  on  those  men 
gathered  under  the  white  flag  in  the  mellow  October 
sunlight.  The  pride  of  victory  is  in  their  hearts,  for 
they  have  done  well  for  France;  they  have  cruelly 


ROCHAMBEAU  301 

avenged  the  loss  of  Canada.  The  world  smiles  upon 
them  as  the  British  pass  by  and  pile  their  arms. 
Happily  for  them  they  cannot  read  the  future.  They 
do  not  even  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  war  they  have 
helped  to  bring  to  an  end.  They  cannot  interpret 

"  Time's  dark  events 
Charging  like  ceaseless  clouds  across  the  sky." 

But  their  future  is  our  past,  and  we  know  their 
destinies.  There  is  Rochambeau  himself,  chief  figure 
among  the  French.  He  will  go  home  to  added  honors; 
he  will  take  part  presently  in  the  movement  for  re 
form,  and  will  receive  from  a  new  government  a 
marshal's  baton.  Then  a  torrent  of  blood  flows. 
Others  of  his  rank  will  fly  across  the  frontier,  but  he 
is  made  of  sterner  stuff.  He  will  retire  to  his  estates, 
be  dragged  to  prison,  will  be  barely  saved  from  the 
guillotine  by  the  Ninth  Thermidor,  and  will  live  on 
to  receive  the  compliments  of  the  greatest  soldier  of 
modern  times,  and  will  die  full  of  years  and  honors. 
There  is  Lafayette.  For  him  an  Austrian  prison  is 
waiting.  There  is  Viome'nil,  who  commanded  the 
force  which  took  the  redoubt.  He  will  die  in  hiding, 
wounded  in  defence  of  his  king's  palace  against  the 
onset  of  a  maddened  people  on  the  10th  of  August. 
There  is  Damas,  wounded  at  the  Yorktown  redoubt. 
In  a  few  years  he  will  be  a  fugitive  and  an  exile 
fighting  against  France.  There  is  Lameth,  wounded 


302  ROCHAMBEAU 

also  at  the  redoubt.  For  him,  too,  the  future  holds  a 
prison  and  a  long  exile.  There  is  Lauzun,  type  of 
the  aiicien  regime,  the  victor  over  Tarleton's  horse, 
the  bearer  of  the  brave  news  to  Versailles ;  he,  too, 
will  stay  by  France,  and  his  end  will  be  the  guillo 
tine.  The  prophet  who  should  have  foretold  such 
fates  as-  these  for  that  gallant  company  would  have 
been  laughed  to  scorn.  From  no  men  did  disaster 
seem  more  distant  than  from  those  brave  gentlemen 
of  France  on  that  October  morning,  and  yet  the 
future  held  for  them  exile,  prison,  and  the  guillotine. 
And  it  was  all  inevitable,  for  the  American  Revolution 
not  only  made  a  new  nation,  but  it  was  the  beginning 
of  a  world-wide  movement,  at  once  mighty  and  re 
lentless.  There  was  something  stronger  than  gov 
ernment  or  ministers,  than  kings  or  politics,  which 
brought  the  French  to  America. 

Across  the  square  stands  the  statue  of  Lafayette. 
He  brought  to  America  no  army  like  Rochambeau,  no 
fleet  like  De  Grasse.  He  came  by  no  command  of 
his  king.  Yet  has  he  always  been  nearer  to  the 
hearts  of  the  Americans  than  any  man  not  of  their 
own  people.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  He 
came  of  his  own  accord,  and  brought  with  him 
the  sympathy  of  France.  He  represented  the  new 
spirit  of  a  new  time,  the  aspirations,  the  hopes,  the 
visions  which  had  come  out  of  the  intellectual  revolu 
tion  wrought  by  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  the  Encyclo- 


ROCHAMBEAU  303 

p^distes.  Purposes  of  state,  calculations  of  chances, 
selfish  desires  might  guide  the  French  Government, 
but  Lafayette  was  the  living  embodiment  of  the  sym 
pathy  of  the  French  people  for  the  cause  of  the 
United  States.  He  came  because  he  loved  that  cause 
and  had  faith  in  it,  and  so  the  American  people  gave 
faith  and  love  to  him.  And  this  impalpable  spirit  of 
the  time,  stirring  strongly  but  blindly  in  France,  was 
even  then  more  powerful  than  monarchs  or  cabinets 
or  coalitions.  In  America  it  passed  for  the  first  time 
from  the  world  of  speculation  to  the  world  of  action. 
There  in  the  new  country,  on  the  edge  of  the  yet 
unconquered  continent,  theory  became  practice  and 
doctrines  lived  as  facts.  There  a  people  had  risen  up 
declaring  that  they  were  weary  of  kings,  had  fought 
their  own  battle  for  their  own  hand,  and  won.  The 
democratic  movement  had  begun. 

From  America  it  passed  across  the  sea,  saying  to 
all  men  that  what  had  been  done  in  the  new  land 
could  be  done  likewise  in  the  old.  The  army  of 
Rochambeau,  flushed  with  victory,  bore  back  the 
message  with  them,  and  it  fell  upon  listening 
ears.  France  had  helped  us  to  liberty  and  inde 
pendence,  and  we  had  shown  her  how  both  were 
won.  The  force  which  we  had  summoned  they,  too, 
evoked,  and  banded  Europe,  blind  to  the  deeper 
meanings  of  the  American  war,  went  to  pieces  in  dull 
surprise  before  the  onset  of  a  people  armed,  the 


304  ROCHAMBEAU 

makers  of  a  revolution  in  which  thrones  tottered, 
privilege  and  feudalism  went  down  to  ruin,  and  the 
ancient  boundaries  of  kings  faded  from  the  map. 
The  lilies  which  had  floated  so  triumphantly  in  the 
Virginian  air  gave  way  to  the  American  colors, 
which  French  armies  carried  in  triumph  from  Paris 
to  Moscow,  and  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Nile,  wiping 
out  forever  the  petty  tyrannies  which  sold  men  to 
fight  in  quarrels  not  their  own,  and  clearing  the 
ground  for  the  larger  liberty  and  the  united  nations 
of  to-day.  The  United  States,  with  independence 
achieved,  passed  out  of  the  network  of  European 
politics,  in  which  for  a  century  and  a  half  the 
American  colonies  had  been  entangled,  but  the  in 
fluence  and  example  of  the  American  revolution  were 
felt  throughout  the  civilization  of  the  West. 

We  unveil  this  statue  in  honor  of  a  brave  soldier 
who  fought  by  the  side  of  Washington.  We  place  it 
here  to  keep  his  memory  fresh  in  remembrance  and 
as  a  monument  of  our  gratitude  to  France.  But  let 
us  not  forget  that  we  also  commemorate  here  the  men 
who  first  led  in  arms  the  democratic  movement 
which  during  a  century  of  conflict  has  advanced  the 
cause  of  freedom  and  popular  government  throughout 
the  world  of  Western  civilization. 


APPENDIX 

LETTER  FROM  HON.  GEORGE  F.  HOAR 

In  regard  to  Mr.  Sherman  and  Mr.  Ellsworth  and  the  share  of 
each  in  securing  the  "  Connecticut  Compromise  " 

ISLES  OF  SHOALS,  July  28, 1902. 

MY  DEAR  COLLEAGUE,  —  I  suppose  as  a  writer  and  student 
of  American  History,  dwelling  in  Boston,  you  have  often  been 
bothered  by  the  claims  of  your  contemporaries  in  behalf  of 
their  grandfathers.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a  Bostonian  with 
an  illustrious  great-grandfather  of  your  own,  you  must  have 
learned  to  sympathize  with  the  feeling. 

So  I  make  no  apology  for  calling  your  attention  to  the 
question  whether  Mr.  Ellsworth  can  be  justly  credited  with 
having  designed  the  existing  distribution  of  political  power 
between  the  States  and  the  Nation  in  National  Legislation, 
or  of  having  caused  the  adoption  of  the  same  by  his  efforts  in 
the  Convention  that  framed  the  Constitution,  or  whether,  on 
the  other  hand,  Mr.  Sherman  is  not  justly  entitled  to  that 
credit. 

The  question  is  not  of  very  great  importance  to  the  fame 
of  either.  Each  of  them  rendered  enough  distinguished 
public  service  to  bear  the  subtraction  of  that  from  his  credit 
without  any  serious  impairment  of  his  fame.  That  is  espe 
cially  true  of  Oliver  Ellsworth,  who  gained  so  great  a  distinc 
tion  in  diplomacy,  in  jurisprudence,  in  legislation,  and  as  a 
builder  of  the  Constitution. 

20 


306  APPENDIX 

I  heard  your  address  at  New  Haven.  The  subject  was 
very  dear  to  me  indeed.  I  have  always  felt  toward  Oliver 
Ellsworth  as  you  might  feel  toward  a  very  dear  uncle,  or, 
except  for  the  difference  in  time,  as  toward  an  elder  brother. 
He  was  my  grandfather's  dearest  and  closest  friend.  My 
mother  was  constantly  in  his  household,  and  his  daughter 
was  my  mother's  dearest  friend  in  her  youth,  and  his  chil 
dren  were  her  playmates.  So  I  heard  stories  about  the  Ells 
worths,  or  to  use  my  mother's  phrase,  what  "  Judge  Ellsworth 
used  to  say,"  as  you  heard  stories  doubtless  from  your  parents 
of  your  grandparents.  Ellsworth's  great  service  has  been  too 
much  neglected  by  historians.  Save  the  excellent,  but  of 
course  brief,  tribute  to  him  by  Mr.  Bancroft,  there  has  been 
no  adequate  tribute  to  him  until  yours. 

But  I  think  you  will  agree  that  the  chief  credit  of  the 
Connecticut  Compromise,  as  it  has  been  called,  does  not 
belong  to  him. 

I  have  drawn  off  from  the  Madison  papers  everything 
which  was  said  or  done  by  either  of  them  in  regard  to  the 
subject.  Of  all  this  I  send  you  a  copy.  The  dates  are 
given.  The  pages  referred  to  are  those  of  the  edition  just 
published  by  Congress,  in  what  is  called  the  "  Documentary 
History  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  which  I 
have  no  doubt  you  have  at  hand. 

What  Mr.  Ellsworth  said  and  did  in  the  matter  is  this. 
June  llth,  he  seconded  Koger  Sherman's  motion.  This 
motion  was  that  the  proportion  of  suffrage  in  the  first  branch 
should  be  according  to  numbers,  and  that  in  the  second 
branch  each  State  should  have  one  vote  and  no  more.  That 
motion  was,  after  debate,  lost.  June  29th,  Mr.  Ellsworth 
moved  that  the  rule  of  suffrage  in  the  second  branch  be  the 
same  with  that  established  by  the  Articles  of  Confederation. 
He  made  an  able  speech,  briefly  reported,  in  which  he  said 


APPENDIX  307 

that  he  hoped  that  this  would  become  a  ground  of  com 
promise  in  regard  to  the  second  branch,  and  that  Massa 
chusetts  was  the  only  State  to  the  eastward  that  would 
agree  to  a  plan  which  did  not  contain  this  provision.  That 
motion  also  was  lost.  June  30th,  he  made  another  able 
speech  in  favor  of  that  proposition.  June  25th,  he  made 
another  able  speech  on  the  same  subject. 

July  2nd,  he  was  elected  to  the  Committee  on  Representa 
tion  in  the  Senate.  He  did  not  serve  on  the  Committee,  but 
was  replaced  by  Mr.  Sherman.  July  5th,  he  said  he  was 
ready  to  accede  to  the  compromise  they  had  reported. 
July  14th,  he  asked  two  very  searching  and  pregnant  ques 
tions  of  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Madison,  the  answers  to  which 
tended  to  destroy  the  force  of  Mr.  Wilson's  argument  against 
the  compromise.  August  8th,  Mr.  Ellsworth  did  not  think 
the  clause  as  to  originating  money  bills  of  any  consequence, 
but  as  it  was  thought  of  consequence  by  some  of  the  mem 
bers  from  the  larger  States,  he  was  willing  that  it  should 
stand. 

So,  to  sum  up  Mr.  Ellsworth's  work  in  the  matter,  he  made 
a  motion,  which  was  lost,  covering  a  part  of  the  plan.  He 
seconded  Mr.  Sherman's  original  motion,  which  was  lost. 
He  made  another  motion  substantially  to  the  same  effect, 
which  was  lost,  and  made  three  strong  speeches  and  put  two 
pertinent  questions  on  the  side  of  the  measure.  He  was  put 
on  the  Grand  Committee,  but  did  not  serve,  but  afterwards 
expressed  his  acquiescence  in  the  report,  and  was  obliged  to 
leave  the  Convention  before  it  adjourned  without  signing 
the  Constitution. 

Now,  on  the  other  hand,  see  what  Mr.  Sherman  had  to  do 
with  it,  both  as  to  conceiving  the  plan,  and  as  to  promoting 
its  adoption  by  the  Convention  after  it  had  been  twice 
rejected.  First,  you  find  in  John  Adams'  diary  that  this 


308  APPENDIX 

same  question  occasioned  a  very  earnest  struggle  in  the  Con 
tinental  Congress.  I  have  not  the  references  at  hand,  but 
you  will  easily  find  them  by  looking  at  the  index  of  John 
Adams'  works.1  John  Adams  says  that  in  1776,  Mr.  Sherman 
being  on  the  Committee  to  frame  the  Articles  of  Confed 
eration,  Mr.  Sherman  wanted  to  have  the  question  taken 
both  ways,  the  States  first  to  vote  according  to  numbers 
and  again  on  the  principle  of  equality,  and  that  no  vote 
should  be  deemed  to  be  carried  unless  it  had  a  majority  vote 
both  ways. 

This  is  in  substance  what  Mr.  Sherman  moved  first  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention. 

That  this  was  a  subject  of  great  discussion  and  contro 
versy  in  the  Congress,  and  considered  of  the  most  vital  im 
portance,  is  clear,  not  only  from  the  character  of  the  question, 
but  from  Dr.  Franklin's  statement  made  in  the  Constitutional 
Convention  as  to  what  happened  in  the  Continental  Congress 
in  1774.  Mr.  Sherman  was  a  member  of  that  Congress,  as 
he  was  of  the  Congress  in  1776.  Mr.  Ellsworth  was  not  a 
member  of  the  Continental  Congress  in  either  of  those  years. 

So  Mr.  Sherman  had  been  through  one  great  contest  on 
this  same  question,  and  had  himself  devised  the  solution 
which  was  finally  in  substance  adopted  in  the  Constitution. 

Next,  Mr.  Sherman  made  the  first  motion  for  the  adoption 
of  this  principle  hi  the  Convention,  June  llth.  The  relation 
of  that  motion  to  the  old  controversy  in  the  Continental 
Congress  appears  clearly  from  the  fact  that  Dr.  Franklin's 
statement  on  that  subject  was  made  to  the  Convention  the 
same  day. 

Also  on  the  same  day,  Mr.  Sherman,  having  made  his 
original  proposition,  moved  that  the  question  be  taken  upon 
it  and  declared  that  everything  depended  upon  that.  He 

1  Works  of  John  Adams,  vol.  ii.  pp.  365  ff.,  496-501. 


APPENDIX  309 

declared  that  the  smaller  States  would  never  agree  to  the 
plan  on  any  other  principle  than  an  equality  of  suffrage  in 
this  branch. 

This,  as  appears  above,  was  June  llth.  Mr.  Ellsworth 
took  no  part  in  the  matter,  except  seconding  Mr.  Sherman's 
motion,  until  June  29th.  June  20th,  Mr.  Sherman  made  a 
long  and  strong  speech  in  favor  of  the  plan.  June  28th  also, 
Mr.  Sherman  made  another  earnest  speech  in  favor  of  the 
plan.  So  he  had  not  only  devised  the  scheme,  but  moved  it 
in  the  Convention,  and  made  three  speeches  in  its  favor 
before  Mr.  Ellsworth  was  heard  from.  Next,  when  on  July 
2nd  General  Pinckney  moved  the  Grand  Committee  to  devise 
and  report  a  compromise,  Mr.  Sherman  spoke  in  favor  of  the 
motion.  He  said,  "  We  are  now  at  a  full  stop,  and  nobody 
he  supposed  meant  that  we  should  break  up  without  doing 
something."  Mr.  Ellsworth  took  no  part  in  that. 

July  2nd,  Mr.  Ellsworth  was  elected  on  the  Committee. 
But  he  went  off  the  Committee  alleging  indisposition,  and 
Mr.  Sherman  went  on.  The  indisposition  could  not  have 
been  very  serious  because  Mr.  Ellsworth  is  found  taking 
part  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention,  I  think,  without 
intermission.  He  was  present  in  the  Convention,  and  spoke 
July  5th,  the  first  day  of  their  meeting  after  the  Committee 
was  appointed.  So  it  seems  not  unlikely  that  his  indisposi 
tion  was  not  only  not  very  serious,  but  that  he  went  off  the 
Committee  in  order  that  Mr.  Sherman,  who  had  shown  such 
great  interest  in  the  matter,  should  take  his  place.  But  this 
of  course  is  mere  conjecture  and  is  not  entitled  to  much 
weight. 

Mr.  Sherman  then  appears  as  moving  in  the  Committee  a 
further  limitation  on  the  power  of  the  Senate,  namely,  that 
while  the  House  was  to  vote  according  to  numbers,  no 
measure  should  pass  the  Senate  unless  there  was  a  majority 


310  APPENDIX 

in  the  Senate  as  representing  population,  and  also  a  majority 
as  representing  the  States  in  its  favor.  Mr.  Madison  says 
that  that  was  not  much  deliberated  upon  or  approved.  It 
does  not  affect  the  point  we  are  dealing  with  one  way  or  the 
other.  But  it  seems  to  me  likely  that  Mr.  Madison,  who  did 
not  himself  attend  the  meeting  of  the  Committee,  probably 
got  his  information  from  somebody  who  misapprehended  the 
point,  because  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  that  proposition 
would  have  been  made.  If  Mr.  Sherman  made  any  motion 
at  all  of  the  sort,  I  should  conjecture  that  it  was  one  which  was 
expected  to  take  effect  only  in  case  the  old  plan  of  a  single 
branch,  or  of  amending  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  which 
both  he  and  Ellsworth  as  well  as  Patterson  and  some  others 
had  favored,  were  adopted.  But  this  is  all  idle  conjecture. 

After  the  Committee  had  been  appointed  Mr.  Sherman,  on 
the  7th  of  July,  makes  a  speech  at  some  length  in  favor  of  the 
plan.  Mr.  Ellsworth  did  nothing  further,  except  his  speech 
and  questions  on  July  14th.  On  July  14th,  Mr.  Rutledge 
moved  to  reconsider  the  two  propositions  touching  the  origi 
nating  of  money  bills  in  the  first  and  equality  of  votes  in  the 
second  branch.  Mr.  Sherman  replied  to  him  and  objected, 
but  the  objections  seemed  to  have  been  waived,  and  Mr. 
Sherman  made  another  speech,  so  that  he  spoke  twice  on 
that  day.  September  5th,  Gouverneur  Morris  moved  to  post 
pone  the  clause  concerning  money  bills  which  formed  part  of 
the  Compromise.  Mr.  Sherman  replied  to  him  that  he  was 
for  giving  immediate  ease  to  those  who  look  on  this  clause  as 
of  great  moment,  and  for  trusting  to  their  concurrence  in 
other  proper  measures. 

Now  it  seems  to  me,  from  the  foregoing  summary,  that  Mr. 
Sherman,  besides  having  devised  and  proposed  the  measure, 
and  having  made  more  speeches  than  any  other  person  in  its 
favor,  may  be  fairly  considered  to  have  been  the  member  who 


APPENDIX  311 

had  the  measure  in  charge.  He  undertakes  to  speak  for  the 
smaller  States,  and  whenever  any  question  of  postponing  or 
proceeding  to  consider  or  reconsider  is  made  he  arises  to 
represent  his  side.  Not  only  that,  but  when  Mr.  Morris  tries 
to  get  rid  of  the  clause  about  Money  Bills  which  had  been 
desired  by  the  larger  States,  and  also  was  advocated  later  by 
General  Washington  in  the  only  speech  he  made  as  to  any 
provision  of  the  Constitution  as  being  of  great  importance, 
Mr.  Sherman  insisted  that  that  should  be  disposed  of,  and 
that  those  who  favored  it  should  be  trusted  to  concur  in  other 
proper  measures ;  but  finally,  and  what  seems  to  me  a  clincher, 
on  the  15th  of  September,  when  the  provision  as  to  amending 
the  Constitution  was  up,  Mr.  Sherman  moved  what  nobody 
of  the  small  States  seems  to  have  thought  of  before,  to 
annex  to  the  end  of  the  articles  a  further  proviso,  that  no 
State  shall,  without  its  consent,  be  affected  in  its  internal 
police,  or  be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate. 
That  was  lost.  Mr.  Sherman  then  instantly  moved  to  strike 
out  the  provision  authorizing  amendments  to  the  Constitution 
altogether.  That  was  lost.  But  there  were  such  murmurs 
of  discontent  among  the  representatives  of  the  small  States 
that  the  majority  yielded,  and  Morris,  who  had  himself 
strenuously  resisted  the  whole  arrangement,  moved  to  annex 
the  further  proviso  that  no  state,  without  its  consent,  shall 
be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate.  This  was 
unanimously  agreed  to.  This  motion  of  Gouverneur  Morris 
was  only  a  repetition  of  Mr.  Sherman's  motion  without  the 
provision  as  to  internal  police.  This  was  the  last  day  of  the 
Convention,  and  no  further  action  was  taken  except  the  signa 
ture  of  the  members. 

So  it  seems  to  me  clear  that  the  plan  was  Mr.  Sherman's, 
that  the  proposal  of  it  in  the  Convention  was  Mr.  Sher 
man's,  that  the  first  motion  in  its  favor  was  Mr.  Sherman's, 


312  APPENDIX 

and  that  the  final  proposition  which  made  it  safe  in  the 
clause  about  amending  the  Constitution  was  Mr.  Sherman's  ; 
and  that  he  was  on  the  Committee  that  reported  it,  and  that 
he  made  more  speeches  in  its  favor  than  anybody  else,  and 
seems  to  have  had  the  entire  management  or  conduct  of  the 
measure. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Ellsworth's  contribution  was  sec 
onding  Mr.  Sherman's  first  motion,  making  a  similar  motion 
himself,  which  was  lost,  and  three  or  four  powerful  speeches 
in  its  favor. 

Now  I  know  very  well  that  there  are  many  cases  where 
one  man  will  move  a  measure,  will  propose  and  devise  a 
measure,  and  will  even  have  charge  of  a  measure  in  a  legis 
lative  body  when  the  success  of  the  measure  is  due  to 
the  powerful  influence  of  another.  I  suppose  if  some 
resolution  declaring  the  doctrine  of  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne 
had  been  moved  by  Mr.  Foote  or  somebody  else,  and  had 
been  adopted  by  the  Senate,  that  Webster  would  have  been 
the  man  to  whom  the  securing  of  the  adoption  would  be 
due.  I  suppose  that  the  success  of  Hamilton's  financial 
policy  is  due  to  him,  and  not  to  the  men  who  introduced  or 
supported  it,  in  either  House  of  Congress. 

You  and  I  have  seen  many  examples  like  the  first  in  our 
own  experience.  I  have  prided  myself  a  good  deal  on  the 
provision  for  succession  to  the  Executive  power  which  was 
substituted  for  the  old,  clumsy  arrangement,  but  I  should 
have  been  in  very  great  danger  of  losing  it  by  the  adoption  of 
an  amendment  which  would  have  spoiled  it,  by  requiring  a 
Presidential  election  to  be  had  at  once  in  the  case  that  the 
bill  provided  for,  but  for  Mr.  Evarts  coming  to  my  help  in  a 
powerful  speech  which  convinced  and  carried  the  Senate. 

But  I  do  not  think  that  can  be  said  as  to  the  comparative 
influence  of  Mr.  Sherman  and  Mr.  Ellsworth,  great  as  was 
the  power  of  the  latter. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DA 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


DUE 
JUN  0  R  2005 

RECALL 
IMMEDIATELY 


9 


LIBRARY,  COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE,  DAVIS 
UNIVERSITY  OP  CALIFORNIA 

BookSlip-10m-8,'49(B5851s4)458 


/ 

79023 

S173 

Lodge,  H.C. 

L6      ^ 

A  fighting 

fc  frigate. 

79023 


